The Origins of Modern Sport Pt. 3

This is the final installment in my series on the origins of modern sport in the United States. If you need to catch up, you can find part 1 here, and part 2 here. I hope you've enjoyed the series and remember, all comments are welcome!

Though the backing of the Protestant Church and the upper class added a great impetus, “modern” sport never would have taken off without the support of the middle and working classes. Many advancements in society abetted the growth of sports. Chiefly, improvements in communications and transportation made sports more accessible. Trains and steamboats traveling longer distances made it easier to gather in cities and news and results of sporting events could be communicated effortlessly, especially with the invention of the telegraph. Mass production of watches made scheduling and advertising sporting events possible. Furthermore, the proliferation of the daily newspaper and other specialty sports sheets made results of competitions more-widely known than ever before.[1] All of these advancements made sports more accessible and welcoming to all in American society.

But the transformations were not limited to technological advancements. New conditions in the workplace led to a different mindset, especially amongst the working class. The decline of artisanship gave way to the factory system where work processes were broken down into ever-smaller tasks. The factory, becoming more and more concerned with efficiency, employed strict guidelines and rules. Changes in the white-collar world mirrored those in the blue-collared one.[2] Once seen as an ideal apprenticeship for sons of the upper class to ride their way to professional life, the breaking down of work operations and the invention of the typewriter resulted in the replacement of male clerks with female ones.[3]

One of the working class’ favorite sporting indulgences was prizefighting. Nowhere else in sporting trends, not in basketball nor cricket, can the counterculture against Victorian ideals be so clearly visible. No sport is more vicious, crass, or unrestrained. Early on, prizefighting eschewed rules for entertainment and shock value. Rounds lacked time limits and the bell only rang once a fighter was downed by fists or gave up. Unrestrained rules led to unrestrained audiences. The fights attracted hustlers, ruffians, drunks and thieves. Drinking and gambling were both permitted. Gambling, especially, inverted Victorian morals of money and success.[4] Whereas Victorians viewed the accumulation of money as the result of hard work and self-sacrifice, the wheeling-and-dealing nature of gambling stood entirely opposed such ideals. The never-ending exchange of money after lost and won bets signaled the fact that audiences enjoyed money for the momentary thrill instead of the Victorian method of life-long accumulation of wealth as a sign of hard work. Betting only took guts, not a hard-work ethic.

The ring was also a chance to praise manliness. The ideal Victorian man worked hard, restrained himself and sacrificed himself for the family. But as the household moved away from an economically productive unit into a more feminized arena meant for raising a family, opportunities to prove one’s manhood became fewer and farther between. In the same way that wealthy men escaped to their single-sex country clubs, working and middle class men found refuge in saloons and other enclaves of prizefighting society. Rader describes this dynamic particularly well when he asserts:

In gender-segregated leisure activities, they exhibited toughness, physical
prowess, and generosity. To these men, the prizefighter, with his immense
strength, muscular body and swift, decisive answers, represented and appealing
alternative to the effeminate, self-effacing Victorian ideal of manhood.[5]

Disenchanted with their place in American industry, many turned away from Victorian self-restraint and moderation. Sports and other leisure activities often bestowed more fun, fulfillment and social belonging than did their work. Advertisers picked up on this growing trend and offered products that would deliver “the good life.” Salesmen flew in the face of Victorian thrift and prudence and encouraged people to “buy now and pay later,” and to “live in the moment.”[6]
Americans underwent dramatic and profound change at the turn of the 20th century. The changing landscape of the economy, along with many technological advancements, precipitated much of the change that we see in the public’s opinion towards sports and physical exertion. But despite the institutional changes we cannot neglect the underlying changes in the American psyche. Well healed after the Civil War, and riding high on the confidence of the successes of the Industrial Revolution, many Americans yearned for greater freedom of activity and conscious. Self-assured and prideful of such successes perhaps inclined more and more Americans be more adventurous, adopt a greater penchant for risk, and shed any guilt over various forms of self-indulgence.

[1] Mrozek, 52.
[2] Benjamin Rader, American Ways, (Dallas: Harcourt Publishers, 2001) 191.
[3] Ibid, 27.
[4] Rader, Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports, 43.
[5] Ibid, 44.
[6] Quotes from R.W. Fox and T.J.J Lears, eds., The Culture of Consumption, (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 32.