Sports in American History

Gerald R. Gems, PhD, is a professor emeritus in the kinesiology department at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He is a past vice president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport and a past president of the North American Society for Sport History. He presented the 2016 Routledge Keynote, where he received the Routledge Prize in Sport History. Gems is an international scholar and the author of more than 250 publications, including 28 books. He served as the book review editor of the Journal of Sport History for more than two decades. He also received the Fulbright Senior Specialist award from 2007 to 2012 and was an Illinois Humanities scholar in history from 1999 to 2003. Gems earned his PhD in sports history at the University of Maryland. Linda J. Borish, PhD, is chair and an associate professor in the department of history at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Borish's publications in sports history include her work as lead editor for The Routledge History of American Sport (Routledge). She is the author of numerous book chapters about women, gender, American sports history, and American Jewish history, including chapters in Gods, Games and Globalization: New Perspectives on Religion and Sport; Sports in Chicago; Sports and the American Jew; Jews in the Gym: Judaism, Sports, and Athletics; A Companion to American Sport History; New York Sports: Grit and Glamour in the Empire City; With God on Their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion; and others. Her scholarly articles have been published in the Journal of Sport History, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, Journal of Jewish Identities, American Jewish History, and others. Borish is the executive producer and historian for a 2007 documentary file-"Jewish Women in American Sport: Settlement Houses to the Olympics"-and is a past research associate of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. Borish was selected as the international ambassador for the North American Society for Sport History for 2001-2002 and served on its executive council and publications board as well as serving as co-editor of book reviews for the Journal of Sport History. At Western Michigan University in the College of Arts and Sciences, Borish was awarded the Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Recognition Award for 2019-2020 and previously earned the Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award in Professional and Community Service. Dr. Borish earned her PhD in American studies from the University of Maryland at College Park. Gertrud Pfister, PhD, is a retired professor at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She served as president of the International Sport Sociology Society from 2001 to 2007. Pfister also served as president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport from 1993 to 2000 and won the association's award for lifelong achievements in the area of sports history in 2005. She is a past vice president of the German Turner-Bund. Pfister won the Darlene Kluka Award from the Women's Sport Foundation in 2006, the award of the European Working Group on Women in Sport in 2009, the Dorothy Ainsworth Research Award of the International Association of Physical Education and Sport for Girls and Women (IAPESGW), and the German Gymnastic Association's Els Schroeder Award for research on women and sport in 2013. She has published more than 40 books and has been awarded two knighthoods from the president of Germany and one from the queen of Denmark. Pfister earned honorary doctorates at the Semmelweis University in Budapest 2007 and at the University of Malmoe in 2013. She is to receive a third honorary doctorate from the National University of Taiwan in November 2021. Pfister earned PhDs in sports history and sociology at the University of Regensburg and the Ruhr-University Bochum.

Chapter 1. Sporting Experiences in Early America, 1400-1820 Native American Pastimes and Sports Influence of Religion on English Colonists Sport in American Colonies The Great Awakening and the Place of Sport Consumerism and Changing Patterns of Colonial Life The Enlightenment in America and Ideas of Sport and the Body Sport for Exercise Promoted in the American Revolutionary Era and Early National Period Sporting Practices During the American Revolutionary War Women's Active Recreation in the Revolutionary Era and Republican Motherhood Turn of the Nineteenth Century and Societal Patterns Summary Chapter 2. Antebellum Health Reforms and Sporting Forms, 1820-1860 Overview of the Antebellum Period Health Reformers Muscular Christianity Women and Physical Activity Rural Sporting Practices Rise of Agricultural and Sporting Journalism Sporting Practices of the Middle and Upper Classes Public Spaces for Health and Sport Sporting Pastimes of African Americans and Native Americans Immigrants and Sporting Cultures Summary Chapter 3. Rise of Rationalized and Modern Sport, 1850-1870 Concept of Modern Sport Subcommunities and the Growth of Modern Sport Sporting Fraternity Growth of Sports Clubs and Advancing Rational Recreation Growth of American Team Sport and Competition Rise of Intercollegiate Sport The Civil War and Sporting Experiences Summary Chapter 4. New Identities and Expanding Modes of Sport in the Gilded Age, 1870-1890 Sport and Social Stratification Maintaining Ethnic Forms of Leisure Development of an Intercollegiate Sporting Culture Male Sporting Culture Business of Sport Gendered Sport, Class, and Social Roles Regulation of Sport: Amateurism Versus Professionalism Summary Chapter 5. American Sport and Social Change During the Early Progressive Era, 1890-1900 Social Reformers of the Progressive Era Play and Games in American Ideology Recreational Spaces Back-to-Nature Movement Ethnic Groups Body Culture Sport and Technology Modern Olympic Games Summary Chapter 6. Sport as Symbol: Acculturation and Imperialism, 1900-1920 Sport, Ethnicity, and the Quest for Social Mobility Assimilation of Disparate Groups in American Society Challenging Gender Boundaries Resistance to Social Reform Sport and Colonialism Sport During World War I Summary Chapter 7. Sport, Heroic Athletes, and Popular Culture, 1920-1950 War, Depression, and the Shaping of America Social Change and the Spread of Sport Heroes in the Golden Age Media and the Commercialization of Sport Summary Chapter 8. Sport as TV Spectacle, Big Business, and Political Site, 1950-1980 Sport in the Cold War Evolution of the Sport-Media Relationship Coverage of Alternative Heroes Professional Sport and Labor Relations Sport and the Civil Rights Movement Sport, Narcissism, and the Existential Search for Self Scientific Advancements and the Growth of Sport Summary Chapter 9. Globalized Sport, 1980-2000 Corporate Sporting Culture Drawing Fans to Baseball Michael Jordan and the Growth of Professional Basketball Intercollegiate Sport and the NCAA Women and Sport Drug and Body Abuse Among Athletes Violence in Sport Discrimination at the End of the Twentieth Century Individuality and Sport Icons Alternative Sports Summary Chapter 10. Sport in the Early Twenty-First Century, 2000-2020 Business of Professional Sports Teams Intercollegiate Sport and Conference Changes Title IX and Sport Leadership Women's Professional Teams and Endorsements Modern Olympic Challenges and Stars Sporting Crises Traumatic Brain Injury Covid-19 Virus Pandemic X Games and Alternative Sports Sports Across the Populace Rise of the Runner The Future of Sport Sport in the Age of the Global Pandemic Summary