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Contesting the Norm: Women and Professional Sports in Late Nineteenth- Century America Roberta J. Park a a University of California, Berkeley, USA

Available online: 01 May 2012

To cite this article: Roberta J. Park (2012): Contesting the Norm: Women and Professional Sports in Late Nineteenth-Century America, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 29:5, 730-749

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.675205

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Contesting the Norm: Women and Professional Sports in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Roberta J. Park*

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Athletic opportunities for females have reached an extent that few women living in the nineteenth century might ever have imagined. For more than two decades the women’s 10,000-metre run has been part of the Olympics. Women’s wrestling was added at Athens in 2004 and women’s boxing competitions will begin at the 2012 London Games. Changing cultural norms, especially those brought forth by ‘women’s movements’ of the 1960s as well as the ensuing amazingly successful athletic performances that women attained, have been of the utmost importance. In the United States, as the ‘New Woman’’ of the late 1800s began to engage in a modest game of golf or tennis, or take a leisurely bicycle ride, the then dominant theme – strenuous physical activity is inimical to a female’s health – that had been articulated in books like Edward Clarke’s Sex in Education, Or a Fair Chance for Girls (1873) began to be challenged. Few late nineteenth-century women offered a greater challenge than did ‘professional sportswomen’ like pedestriennes Ada Anderson and Exilda La Chapelle, competitive cyclist Louise Armiando, and the boxer Hattie Stewart. Whereas their feats were ignored by more elevated publications like Scribner’s Magazine and Outing daily newspapers sometimes could be quite complimentary. The coverage given by Sporting Life (considered by many to be the major sports journal of the times) was somewhat mixed. When it came to baseball (the game that ‘made men men’) Sporting Life was vehemently opposed to any woman engaging in America’s ‘national pastime’. So was Albert Spalding, co-founder of the lucrative A.G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company. This article sheds new light upon these and other still too little known matters regarding women who ‘contested the norm’ in late nineteenth-century America.

Keywords: women; professional; strenuous sports

Introduction

The last five decades have witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of sports in which women and girls participate. Until quite recently long-established norms regarding gender and what was deemed appropriate for females had denied them the extent of opportunities that exist today. Whereas at the 1960 Rome Olympics only 610 of the competing athletes had been women (not quite 12% ), at the 2008 Beijing Games 4,639 of the slightly more than 11,000 athletes were females – a rise to more than 42%.1 Olympic competition for women in the 10,000-metre run began at the 1988 Seoul Games. Women’s wrestling, long considered quite inappropriate for

*Email: rjpark@berkeley.edu

The International Journal of the History of Sport

Vol. 29, No. 5, April 2012, 730–749

ISSN 0952-3367 print/ISSN 1743-9035 online

� 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.675205

http://www.tandfonline.com

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females (even though a few had engaged in it for more than a century), was added to the programme of the 2004 Athens Olympics. Women’s boxing will take place for the first time at London in 2012.2

Opportunities for such advances had been fostered by the ‘women’s movements’ that began to rise to power in a number of countries during the 1960s. In the United States the passage of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 was of singular importance for advancing opportunities for girls as well as for women.3 ‘The new feminism’, which also began in the 1960s, ushered in what has become a remarkable number of books that have dealt with bringing forth information, previously largely ignored, about what women have achieved throughout history and how some have challenged traditional beliefs about their ‘presumed limited abilities’. Carroll Smith- Rosenberg’s Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America was one of the earlier works that called for casting new light upon such matters. In the opening chapter entitled ‘Hearing Women’s Words: A Feminist Reconstruction of History’, Smith-Rosenberg wrote: ‘[T]hose of us who in the early 1970s responded to the feminist call to discover our collective past had been brought up in the assumptions and methods of conventional history. . . . Then we struggled to master the skills necessary to reconstruct women’s past’. The most ‘revolutionary’ aspect of women’s history, she continued, became a ‘refusal to accept gender-role divisions as natural. . . . Gender, we insisted, was man-made, the product of cultural definitions, not of biological forces’. The book’s final section is entitled ‘The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870–1930’.4

The late nineteenth/early twentieth century was a period during which some women engaged, quite successfully, in sports that were much more strenuous than most people even today may realise. This matter, a central focus of this research, will be examined in some detail in the last four sections of this article. Words that appear in the opening chapter of Susan Cahn’s Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth Century Women’s Sport (1995), one of the earlier of the now extensive number of books that have made it essential to reassess the engagement of women in sport, are particularly relevant: ‘The notion that ‘‘refined’’ women played suitable ‘‘refined’’ games protected elite sportswomen from violating the boundary between proper womanhood and ‘‘vulgar’’ women of other classes’.5 However, overlooking the accomplishments of these presumptive ‘lower class’ women usually results in an all too preconceived understanding of the past.

Setting the Context

By the time that Smith-Rosenberg’s Disorderly Conduct appeared scholars in disciplines ranging from history and sociology to gender studies and more were beginning to turn to ‘sport’ as a viable lens for examining various aspects of the past of females – both homogeneous and varied. It did not take long to discern that the dominant text ascribed to what women’s role had been and what they had accomplished – or been denied opportunities to accomplish – had been far too constrained. Instead, at a time when the cultural norms had sought to confine their activities many women had ‘broken the bonds’ and achieved much more than conventional wisdom was willing to believe that they could. By the 1870s ‘more elevated’ women were attaining approval to engage in ‘genteel’ sports such as archery, tennis, and golf. The National Archery Association sponsored its first woman’s national championship in 1879; the National Tennis Association and the

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United States Golf Association would do likewise in 1887 and 1895 respectively.6 At the same time that the late nineteenth-century ‘new women’ were gaining modest opportunities to engage in these less physically demanding sports, scores of pedestriennes7, competitive female cyclists, and even women wrestlers and boxers were performing across the United States. Many received much more positive attention than one might have expected in daily newspapers and in some, but not all, sporting journals. The more refined press almost totally ignored them.

Although engaging in any physical activity challenged the dominant theme promoted by American physician Edward Clarke in his 1873 book Sex in Education, Or a Fair Chance for Girls,8 none did so more than did the feats of pedestriennes, competitive female cyclists, women wrestlers and boxers, and female baseball players who (in small numbers) were engaging in that game by the 1880s. In his book (which went into 17 editions in 13 years) Clarke also maintained that when females expended energy on mental activity (for example, education) this depleted the energy that they needed for proper physical development. Instead, girls and young women should be passive and concentrate on developing their reproductive systems.9 Julia Ward Howe, a supporter of women’s suffrage and founder in 1876 of the Association of American Women (an organization that advocated women’s education), was among those who took umbrage. In 1874 she edited Sex and Education: A Reply to Dr. E. H. Clarke’s ‘Sex in Education’, which drew upon the opposing views of men as well as women. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a supporter of co-education and a college classmate of Clarke, stated that Clarke’s negative assertions about women lacked any basis in science. Mrs. Horace Mann maintained that mental activity was ‘as good for women’ as it was ‘good for men’ and that Clarke had erroneously judged all women by ‘the invalids’ he had attended as a doctor. Co-education, she believed, could be beneficial for both sexes.10 Others – both women and men – agreed. This was reflected in papers published in the North American Review in 1882. Long-standing ‘woman’s rights’ advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton (then over 65 years of age) insisted that girls and boys should meet ‘every day on the play-ground’. James Read Chadwick (Instructor in Gynecology, Harvard Medical School) maintained that when girls ran, played ball and other active games both their health and their minds improved.11

Nevertheless, some individuals continued to support Clarke’s views. Addressing the question of how women and men differed, Francis Parkman (whose health had been so delicate that he had been obliged to give up even scholarly activity for several years) maintained that biology had determined for the female an entirely different role than that of the male.12 However, by 1897 (when Parkman’s ‘The Woman Question’ was published) such assertions would be increasingly difficult to sustain. Parkman apparently did not know or did not care, that substantial numbers of women had been engaging quite successfully for several years in sports such as tennis and much more physically demanding activities such as pedestrianism, cycling contests, wrestling, and even baseball.

It is worthy of note that with the exception of baseball, these women usually received reasonably favourable treatment in newspapers and in many, but not all, sporting journals – even when they competed against males. However, accounts of their participation – and certainly their accomplishments – did not appear in the Cosmopolitan, Fortnightly Review, Scribner’s Magazine, and other more ‘elevated’ publications even though by the 1880s and 1890s these were giving at least a modicum of attention to women’s participation in genteel activities such as golf and

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leisurely cycling. Discussing the emergence of tennis as a game for women at places like the Philadelphia Cricket Club and the Staten Island Cricket Club, for example, Henry W. Slocum stated in Outing in 1889: ‘To enumerate and describe all of the clubs in the neighborhood of New York City that gladly welcome ladies to membership would be an almost endless task’.13 The image of a modest young woman tranquilly cycling that appeared in Scribner’s Magazine for June 189614 was a far cry from portrayals of professional cyclists such as Louise Armaindo, whose feats were celebrated in publications like Sporting Life and the National Police Gazette.

A portion of Chapter 1 of Martha Banta’s 1987 book Imaging the American Woman: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History, an account of visual and verbal representations of ‘the New Woman’ who rose to power in the United States in the decades between the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 and 1918, is devoted to ‘athletics’ (that is, sports). However, it includes nothing about individuals such as Louise Armaindo or other professional sportswomen. According to Banta’s analyses, the three dominant representations of the turn- of-the century ‘American Woman’ were: the alluring Beautiful Charmer, recognised for her virtuousness as well as physical attractiveness – she might also be a ‘manipulator of men’s hearts’; the ‘New England Woman’ (known for her thoughtfulness and dedication); and the ‘Outdoors Girl’ (who cavorted and even engaged in certain sports). Those discussed, with accompanying images, in Imaging the American Woman are lady cyclists, golfers, swimmers and Vassar College girls playing the ‘new’ game of basketball.15

Lina and Adelia Beard’s The American Girls Handy Book: How to Amuse Yourself and Others, which went to several editions, was one of the indications of the increasing opportunities that middle- and upper-class females would begin to have. The Preface to the 1893 edition contains the following words: ‘One of our objects is to impress upon the minds of the girls the fact that they all possess talent and ability to achieve more than they suppose possible’. However, in addition to a chapter about the home gymnasium it contained only brief comments about walking, archery and tennis. Subsequent editions would considerably extend the range. In the Preface to the 1905 edition the authors wrote: ‘In this age of wonderful discoveries and rapid developments . . . [girls] now enter the regular college, and in addition to the studies, take part in many if not all the athletic sports of the boys’.16

The late nineteenth-century ‘New Woman’ had been a controversial figure. Conventional thinkers were troubled by her efforts to escape traditional domestic constraints and by her endeavours to achieve greater opportunities for appearances in public (sport was one of these) and the right to vote. Others were encouraged by what these women were doing to open wider doors that were keeping most females constrained. In a manner not unlike what many hoped for when they seized upon ‘athletics’ as a means to give graphic expression to the equity – if not equality – set forth in Title IX of the 1972 Education Act, numbers of late nineteenth/early twentieth-century American women had seen in sports a valuable way to ‘free their bodies’ and expand their opportunities as social beings.

Strong and ‘Think-Set Heroines’ Re-emerge in the Late 1800s

In 1727, while titled English ladies might have been playing a genteel game of battledore on the lawns of their husbands’ country estates, Elizabeth Wilkinson had

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fought Hannah Highfield for three guineas at Hockley-in-the-Hole. Mrs. Stokes (‘the City Champion’), the ‘Hibernean Heroine’, and other female boxers entertained crowds at James Figg’s London amphitheatre. In 1768 a female contestant known as ‘Bruising Peg’ outclassed her opponent. In North Wales during the late 1700s Margaret Evans was reputed to have enjoyed a reputation as ‘such a powerful wrestler that . . . few young men dared try a fall with her’.17 Wagering was ubiquitous and most, perhaps all, such contests were staged. Foot-racing, typically associated with county fairs, was then the most popular women’s sport. Women also were engaging in walking races (pedestrianism) well before Captain Barclay’s famous 1809 feat. In 1765, a young woman completed 72 miles from Blencogo, Scotland to Newcastle in two days.18 In the aptly subtitled ‘Debility and Strength’ chapter of Women’s Sports: A History, Allen Guttmann included information about French and Russian wrestlers, foot-racing in France and Germany, and other contests involving women during the nineteenth century. However, with the exception of Dahn Shaulis’ interesting account of two of the most famous late nineteenth- century female pedestriennes – Ada Anderson and Bertha Von Hillern – and brief comments in books like Edward Sears, Running Through the Ages (2001) it is difficult to find historical accounts of women and professional sports in late nineteenth-century America.19

During the last portion of the nineteenth century a resurgence of interest in such sports involving females occurred. On 1 September 1875 (six days after Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim the English Channel), Agnes Beckwith swam five miles from London Bridge to Greenwich Hospital Pier. Accompanied by an estimated 100 boats, 14-year-old Emily Parker (‘The Mermaid of the Thames’) then swam from London Bridge to Blackwall Pier for a side wager of £50.00.20 Shortly thereafter she completed nearly 10 miles to Woolwich Gardens; it was claimed that 5,000spectators watched the plump (140 lb) young woman achieve this remarkable feat. Within less than a month several young women were also engaging for prizes in swimming contests on New York’s East River.21 When six ‘fair New Jersey maidens’ contested for prizes in a 200-yard race on the Passaic River in 1883 the victor by two yards was 18-year-old Kittie Garner. Marie Finney and Ada Webb were noted female swimmers during the 1880s and early 1890s. In 1901, Cora Beckwith of Buffalo, New York (who maintained that she had swum from Dover to Calais in the company of Captain Webb) announced that she would attempt to swim through the same Niagara rapids where 18 years earlier Webb had lost his life.22

Females also entered into rowing competitions. Annie Keefe and Jennie O’Neill apparently had rowed against each other on New York’s Harlem River in 1867. Three years later several thousand spectators, including ‘a large number of women’, purportedly watched Lottie McAlice and Maggie Lew in a one and-a-half mile sculling race. McAlice (victor in 18:54) was awarded a gold watch offered by the Pittsburgh Nonpareil Club; The Times devoted a quarter of a column to the event under the heading ‘Woman’s Rights’. The New York Clipper featured a well-dressed young oarswoman on the 20 August 1870 front page of its 20 August 1870 edition. The third race at the Tenth Annual Regatta of the Empire City Rowing Club in 1871 was ‘for ladies only in single scull working boats’.23 A double-scull race for ladies was also held. In 1878, several arranged to row flat-bottomed boats for prizes at Fair Haven, New Jersey. Two withdrew from the ‘senior’ race after a debate over whether coaching would be allowed and the field was left to Sarah Bennett, Annie Bennett and Emily Snyder. Sarah, who finished with a stroke of 32, was said to have a rowing

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style similar to that of Charles Courtney (who recently had turned professional after rowing for nine years as an amateur).24 Interest in such matches declined shortly thereafter but occasional events continued to be held. In 1884, two ‘muscular’ women named Ms Dooley and Ms Mooney raced on New York’s Staten Island Sound. Sporting Life maintained that considerable money had been wagered on the outcome; however, darkness and allegations of fouls convinced the judges that the match would have to be rescheduled. In November 1895, Rosa Mosentheim (St Louis) won the ladies mile-and a-half single scull during an ‘international rowing regatta’ at Austin, Texas, in 15:17.5. These contests were conducted in quite a different atmosphere than was rowing at Wellesley and other small women’s colleges, where the carefully secluded sport was being embraced by physical education instructresses for the health benefits it was thought to confer.25

Professional cyclists such as Louise Armaindo engaged in demanding competi- tions, sometimes against male cyclists.26 Although ignored by more elevated publications they usually, but not quite always, received favourable treatment in the public press. For a short time female boxers also enjoyed some popularity. Hattie Stewart was said to be an excellent ‘specimen of physical development’ with a ‘right cross’ similar to that of the noted heavyweight fighter John L. Sullivan. Ostensibly, Stewart could hold her own with at least some male boxers.27 Although interest in such contests soon decreased, during the early 1900s some women would continue to appear in special matches or on the vaudeville circuit.28 Female pedestrian races would attract some of the greatest attention.

Female Pedestrians Re-emerge

Rowing requires special equipment and the attainment of skills that are not inherently natural. Running, and especially walking, contests call for the types of coordination that humans may use daily. The ‘naturalness’ of the activity, the fact that no special equipment was needed, the relative ease of finding halls in which contests could be staged, and the possibility of attracting paying audiences all favoured the growth of women’s participation in pedestrianism during the 1870s and 1880s. The catalyst was the resurgence of interest in male events.

Although interest in pedestrianism in Britain had declined by the 1830s it did not disappear. During the 1840s and 1850s, Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle still included numerous announcements of male pedestrian matches. Across the Atlantic in 1835 wealthy New Yorker John Cox Stevens offered $1,000 to any man who could complete 10 miles in less than an hour. Louis Bennett (‘Deerfoot’) and Edward Payson Weston (who would undertake a 400-mile walk from Boston to Washington, DC in 1861 for Abraham Lincoln’s presidential inauguration) became especially popular figures. Weston would help increase interest in the sport by engaging in long distance contests in both Britain and the United States. In March 1870 The Spirit of the Times noted that ‘the Parker Sisters’ (ages 15 and 16) had walked 80 miles in Princeton, Illinois for a purse of $100.00. The patronage of Sir John Dugdale Astley, who sponsored a series of international matches between male pedestrians in 1878 and 1879 (and Astley’s guarantee of $4,000 and a richly adorned belt), gave added interest to the sport. Over a period of 18 months, thousands of Londoners crowded into Islington’s Agricultural Hall – New Yorkers crowded into Gilmore’s Garden (soon renamed Madison Square Garden) – to watch and wager on Astley Belt contests.29

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Women as well as more men took to the tracks. Perhaps the first American woman to have taken up the sport was Annie Gibbons of Rochester, New York, who set out to walk 100 miles in 24 hours. She also competed against Annie Mattice for a purse of $500 in a five-day contest at Cincinnati, Ohio. Early in 1876, Millie Rose (referred to as ‘the Indianapolis pedestrian’) engaged in a 50-mile walk as part of a 300-mile contest between Mary Marshall and the German walker Bertha Von Hillern at Chicago’s Second Regiment Armory. (The noted Irish-American race walker Daniel O’Leary was in charge of the arrangements for the match.) Von Hillern and Marshall (winner of the first encounter, who apparently had been a book canvasser30 and had walked long distances for the job) began another six-day match at New York’s Central Park Garden for a purse of $1,000 the following November. She was declared the victor over a much fatigued Marshall. Determined to regain her stature in the sport, Marshall quickly issued a challenge to walk against any man for 20 miles each of three consecutive evenings, the winner to take the $500 purse. Victorious over ‘an ambitious youth’ named Van Ness, she then looked forward to a return match against Von Hillern.31 Across the Atlantic in August 1876, Bella St. Clair completed the task of walking 1,000 quarter miles (250 miles) at North Woolwich Gardens with two days to spare. Sixteen women had also engaged in a competition at Birmingham’s Bingley Hall. The Lord’s Day Observance Society considered such contests offensive to females and referred to Madame Willets’s efforts to replicate Captain Barclay’s walk of 1,000 miles as a ‘demoralizing’ exhibition.32

Sporting outfitter and entrepreneur Ed James included bits of information and sketches of several of the best-known women pedestrians in his 1877 manual Practical Training, a 100-page compilation of training tips and record performances of champion rowers, runners and walkers.33 Most participants were probably attracted for financial reasons or the hope of gaining a moment of glory – the same things their male counterparts sought. As did boxing, wrestling and various other late nineteenth-century sports, the female ‘walking mania’ offered entertainment, and for some observers opportunities for what they hoped would be a bit of voyeurism. Some of the pedestriennes may actually have been engaged in the ‘walking trade’ and some, apparently, were mistresses of the men identified as their ‘trainers’. Women also competed against men. In November 1878, Bertha von Berg lost a 100-mile match at Watertown, New York to John MacConnell by six laps. Three months earlier, The Times had reported that a Madame Ada Anderson had just completed walking for six consecutive days at King’s Lynn, Norfolk.34

By December 1878 Anderson was in the United States at Brooklyn’s Mozart Garden ready to begin walking 2,700 quarter miles in 2,700 consecutive quarter hours (675 hours). As her miles accumulated newspaper accounts increased in both frequency and length. A thousand spectators, it was claimed, had watched as she completed her task on the evening of 13 January 1879. Half the crowd, the New York Times asserted, was comprised of ‘women who stood through hours of terrible crushing without complaint, satisfied if they could now and then catch a glimpse of the woman they have come to regard as one of the most wonderful of their sex’. Wagering on the outcome was high and there was amazement that the little English pedestrienne had successfully completed her task.35 The Boston Globe called the event ‘The Most Remarkable Feat on Record’ – something that no other woman had yet accomplished. Now aged 36, it was reported that Anderson had first of all walked 1,000 half-miles (500 miles) in 1,000 half-hours (500 hours) in September 1877 at the

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Cambrian Garden in Wales. This had been followed by walks of 1,250 miles in 1,000 hours at Plymouth and 1,500 miles in 1,000 hours at Leeds. Her last performance before leaving for the United States had been a walk of 2,688 quarter-miles in 2,688 quarter-hours at Peterborough.36

During the victory celebrations that followed her Mozart Gardens performance, Madame Anderson declared that she had been a singer, actress, circus clown and proprietress of concert halls. When she decided to become a professional walker she had been advised, apparently, to go to America and ‘win a name before attempting any extraordinary feat in the old country’. It was her hope to continue for a year then settle down to a more domestic life. For her various efforts, she was able to deposit several thousand dollars. However, the Brooklyn Women’s Christian Temperance Society objected to such walking on the Sabbath and considered her efforts to have been a ‘pitiful display of womanhood . . . contrary to the dictates of humanity and the laws of God’.37 Nonetheless, thousands of other individuals clearly were interested in Madame Anderson and the many other pedestriennes who took advantage of the public’s craze for observing, and betting on, such contests.

At the same time that Madame Anderson was completing her 2,700 quarter-miles other pedestrians (male as well as female) were toiling away in large and small halls across the United States. Annie Bartell (the ‘Westchester Milkmaid’) and Lulu Loomer (a 22-year-old former trapeze performer) appeared at the Brewster Building in New York City. ‘Clad in a short walking suit of black velvet with gilt ornament’, Bartell (aged about28) carried a whip (perhaps in emulation of Anderson, for whom this was a trademark). According to the New York Times, only 32 spectators were present the first day; however, the audience was considerably larger the following evening and included a ‘number of the gentler sex’.38 Upon completing a 2,700 quarter-mile walk at Jersey City, Josie Wilson immediately announced that she would continue to 3,000 quarter-miles. At the same time other events were in progress. Rose Franklin, referred to as ‘the English pedestrian’, was walking 2,800 quarter-miles at the Adelphi Theater in Williamsburg, where a spectator occasionally joined her for a turn or two on the small track.39

The newspapers were only infrequently critical; and even if a match were likely to have been staged, the amazing endurance of the better female performers was often noted. On the evening of 17 February 1879, 18-year-old Millie Reynolds began a 32- day, 3,000 quarter-mile walk at Boston’s Revere Hall. It was reported that the ‘large boned and muscular’ young woman walked ‘with a determined air’. James Robinson, an English trainer, Dr Dennett and three female attendants had been engaged for her care. Three days into the trial the Boston Globe reported on Reynolds’s condition. After 800 quarter-miles, her feet were said to be as ‘sound as a dollar, her eyes bright, her courage of the best’. While all this was going on, various male pedestrian contests were underway at Boston’s Institute Hall. On 18 February 1879 the last event of the programme was a 25-mile walk for a purse of $100 between Helene Freeman and James Black (President of the Middlesex Rowing Association, who was making his first public appearance as a walker). After a number of lead changes, Freeman won by one lap. At approximately the same time 18-year-old Lillian Hoffman completed a 500 quarter-mile walk at Providence, Rhode Island with what was said to have been a 78 average pulse rate.40

Meanwhile, Exilda La Chapelle was pursuing 2,700 quarter-miles in 2,700 quarter-hours at Chicago’s Foley Theater. Attired in her favourite red suit, and accompanied by the well-known fast walker James Smith and her manager Charles

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Davies, La Chapelle ran and walked her last quarter-mile to the enthusiastic cheering of a large crowd. She thereupon declared that she would extend the walk another 50 hours and extinguish Madame Anderson’s record. As was often the case at male pedestrian events, a number of ‘added attractions’ had been included alongside her performance (for example, a mile race for professionals; the appearance of noted long distance walker John Ennis). During the last evening of La Chapelle’s programme two young girls named Smith and Gardner contested each other in a short walk-run.41

On 28 February, ‘attired in a neat and most becoming black silk costume trimmed with maroon and gold’, Lulu Loomer was again on the track in an effort to eclipse Madame Anderson’s record. Shortly thereafter, the Baltimore American reported that a number of women were engaged in a similar contest at Philadelphia. Eighteen set off on a six-day walking match at Gilmore’s Garden on 26 March 1879. Although many lacked training and experience, the group included several who were already well-known – La Chapelle (Canadian), Von Berg (presumably originally from Holland, the eventual winner), Cora Cushing (Irish), Madame Tobias (New York), Madame Franklin (English), and Bella Killbury – as well as several lesser known local and foreign participants. The Spirit of the Times included a detailed account of the event and made note of six other cities in which female pedestrian races were also occurring. Some 3,000 spectators were present on the last day of the Gilmore’s Garden match. Von Berg received $1,000 in prize money and the championship belt.42 (A few weeks earlier, Killbury had completed a 400-mile seven- day walk at Eagle Hall in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was said that she also had received a medal for walking 200 miles against a man named Colston and had won medals for swimming, trapeze and saving a drowning person.)43 Two of the 18 women who had competed in the six-day match at Gilmore’s Gardens were said to own ‘valuable real estate in New York City’ and had entered the contest ‘just for fun’. Some of the others were referred to as indigent young girls and ‘gray-haired matrons’ with no attendants, entrance money, food to sustain themselves during the ordeal, or proper clothing. No sooner had the women vacated the Gilmore’s Garden track than 40 male contestants set out on a six-day competition. At the end of four days, 27 had dropped out.44

Cities and towns from Maine to Oregon reported an astonishing number of pedestrian races. The majority of these involved males but scores of females also appeared. Many were locals (such as May Belle Sherman, Sadie Donley, Belle Weston, and the 13 other females who participated in California in 1879). Von Berg seems to have been everywhere. In October 1879 she withdrew after 231 miles in a six-day ‘go-as-you-please’ tournament at San Francisco’s Mechanics Pavilion. In May 1880, along with La Chapelle, Tobias, and a dozen other women, Von Berg was back in San Francisco for another contest. Weekly newspapers even carried cartoons of fashionable ladies in their own parlours and at parties emulating the pedestriennes. When promoter D.E. Rose announced a ‘go-as-you-please’ women’s match for Madison Square Garden to take place in early 1881, The Spirit of the Times speculated that hordes of aspirants would apply.45

In the early 1880s, Pennsylvania native Madame Du Pree, who was said to be 40 years of age, allegedly bested three male pedestrians at Las Vegas, New Mexico. Amy Howard, touted by Richard Kyle Fox (proprietor of the National Police Gazette) as the ‘female champion pedestrian of the world’, began a six-day contest against Madame Tobias and Carrie Anderson at Baltimore’s Monumental Theater

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on 19 June 1882. With typical bombast, Fox referred to her ‘wonderful speed and endurance’ and declared that Howard would next meet any female pedestrian in America for from $1,000 to $3,000 a side. When the overseas correspondent for Sporting Life provided a report of Edward Payson Weston’s 5,000-mile attempt at Victoria Palace in 1884 he included caustic comments about the 20 or so women who were currently engaging in a six-day match at Birmingham’s Bingley Hall. With the same vitriol that it had for females who dared engage in America’s ‘national game’ (baseball), Sporting Life expressed amazement that upwards of 3,000 spectators had been willing to witness this ‘female farce’.46 Although contests continued, interest in both men’s and women’s pedestrianism would be on the wane shortly thereafter.

Even those publications that gave attention to female pedestrians had taken somewhat different attitudes. Much depended upon what they considered their audience to be. The Spirit of the Times, which billed itself as ‘The American Gentleman’s Newspaper’ (and gave its greatest attention to the turf, yachting, billiards and baseball), combined fairly straightforward reporting in its ‘Athletics’ column with often supercilious editorial commentaries. Reporting on the March 1879 women’s six-day match at Gilmore’s Gardens, it quipped: ‘Half a dozen were women who had been accused, more or less unjustly, of walking in diverse buildings’. The hint of prostitution was followed by an observation that spectators had included a remarkable number of ‘leaders of fashion and well-known society belles’ (female pedestrian and other such contests had often attracted the rich as well as the working class) and comments about individuals who had taken the ‘high moral ground’ in denouncing these exhibitions as ‘disgusting and immoral’.47

Ever ready to sensationalise, the National Police Gazette was replete with captions like: ‘The Pretty Female Pedestrians—Queer Female Eccentricities’. The Gilmore’s Garden race, editor Fox intoned, had displayed both ‘shapely limbs’ and ‘spindles’. Revelling in phrases like ‘the floor was cleared of the wrecks of the race by sending Williams to her home and poor Farrand, who is fifty years of age, to Bellevue Hospital’, he hinted, with no just cause, that two of the entrants had died. Yet Fox also complimented Von Berg, winner of the $1,000 prize money and champion belt, on her steady pace.48 Across the Atlantic Britain’s Saturday Review declared that the entire enthusiasm for pedestrianism was ‘stupid’. There was nothing ennobling, the writer claimed, about men walking ‘for money under artificial conditions’ and America had added a new and unattractive dimension by encouraging women to do so. If the author of the Saturday Review article knew that Madame Anderson was British he did not acknowledge the fact.49

The Wheel

As the fortunes of pedestrianism declined, those of another endurance activity began to rise. During the 1870s, the ‘Ordinary’ bicycle replaced the velocipede. Touring clubs were quickly formed and races among males such as the early endurance run from Bath to London in 1874 became popular. With its large front and small rear wheels, the ‘Ordinary’ was difficult to ride and most women were disinclined to use it even for recreation. However, a few achieved fame as competitors. Florida native Elsa Von Blumen had taken up cycling on the recommendation of her physician. Described as a young woman of German descent ‘with light brown hair and blue eyes’, she was one of the favourites of the 1880s. Louise Armaindo (sometimes her team-mate, sometimes her adversary) had been born near Montreal, Canada on 12

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October 1860. She learned to ride in 1881, making her first appearance against her teacher ‘Professor’ F.S. Rollinson. With a four-mile handicap, she beat him in a 25- mile race on 4 February 1882 and went on to win at several more venues. Other female cycling competitors included Kittie Brown, Lettie Stanley, Helen Baldwin, and May Allen.50

Between 9 and 14 March 1882, Mademoiselle Armaindo (one of the most famous) completed 617.5 miles in 72 hours. Shortly thereafter she defeated the noted male champion T.W. Eck in a 10-mile race at Toronto then won a 10-mile race at Montreal in slightly over 40 minutes. At Boston in late April, Armaindo defeated Ida Blackwell in a five-mile race and then Von Blumen at Philadelphia. The two women soon lost to a male – W.J. Morgan – at Coney Island even though Armaindo completed 226.5 miles in 13hours. After losing to champion cyclist John S. Prince in a 25-mile race at New York’s Polo Grounds, she competed against Morgan and W.M. Woodside in Chicago, beating both men with a score of 843 miles. For this, Armaindo was described (erroneously) as ‘the only woman who ever won a championship race against men in any athletic sport’. In 1884, she appeared at the first annual tournament of the Kansas City Wheelmen, where she tried to better her own record for the half-mile. She also raced against and beat a galloping horse. That same year she and Prince competed against Charles Anderson and his stable of horses in six-day races at San Francisco’s Mechanics Pavilion and at Chicago’s Base Ball Park.51

Bicycling against horses was not unusual and like contests that involved pushing wheelbarrows, sawing logs, husking corn, drilling rock, and waltzing that were also popular, it could be lucrative. One could purchase photographs of oarsmen, baseball players, wrestlers, jockeys, fighting dogs, fighting cocks, lady bicyclists and female as well as male pedestrians. (Advertisements for photographs listed the names of lady cyclists below those of all male athletes but above fighting dogs and fighting cocks.) With the advent of the Rover ‘safety bicycle’ in 1884 both recreational and competitive cycling took on new dimensions. At the same time that physicians were beginning to debate the dangers of cycling for ‘the New Women’, a few females continued to engage in endurance events. Eighteen-year-old Lottie Stanley (who already had covered 624 miles in a six-day race) prepared to enter the ladies international at Madison Square Garden in May 1889. On 4 November 1895, a Mrs Grace rode 92 miles from London to Coventry in 6 hours and 30 minutes. Two weeks later, Ms Harwood won the Ladies Bicycle Tournament at the Royal Aquarium by riding 371 miles in 23 hours.52

The ‘Squared Circle’ and Other Sporting Forms

All competitive contests are, in a sense, staged but perhaps no sport in which women engaged during the late 1800s was more staged than was boxing. (Friendly little bouts apparently also took place at some of the private ladies’ gymnasia that were popular at the turn of the century.)53 Many men’s fights surely were ‘fixed’ but here at least some pretence that they were actual combats was required. However, from the times of ‘Bruising Peg’ in the mid-1700s, pugilistic contests between females had been as much, if not more, entertainment than sport. On 12 October 1878, two lady pugilists (Ms Burke and Ms Wells) attired in ‘unmentionables made of silk’ engaged in a glove match for money at entertainment and sports promoter Harry Hill’s Exchange in New York City. For six rounds they landed blows on face and body to

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the delight of ‘a great crowd of sporting men and sight-seers’. The match finally was declared a draw. In 1879, Mollie Berdan (from England) and Jessie Lewis (a Californian) arranged to meet in a glove fight for $250 at San Francisco. Libby Kelly, who was said to have attained considerable skill as a boxer, also appeared at Hill’s Exchange during the 1870s and 1880s. In her footsteps there followed Nettie Burke, Jennie Meade, Hattie Edwards and Alice Jennings. Otherwise known as ‘Yankee Girl’, Jennings weighed 120 lb and was 5 ft 3 in. in height. Her backer, the noted pugilist Jimmy Kelly, arranged a number of matches against other female boxers according to London Prize Ring Rules. In 1883, Daisey Daly, referred to as the ‘champion female boxer from California’, defeated Jennings at Hills Exchange and then issued her own challenge to fight any female boxer in America according to the Marquis of Queensberry Rules.54

The publication that gave the greatest amount of attention to women boxers was the National Police Gazette whose editor Richard Kyle Fox was devoted to the sport. He offered ‘championship belts’ and large cash prizes tomen such as JakeKilrain (bare knuckle champion) and JohnL. Sullivan (heavyweight champion from1881 to 1892) in an effort to stimulate interest in boxing and especially to increase his circulation. Fox used similar tactics with – but offered far less money – to the women boxers he sponsored. In fact, Fox loved to depict females in all sorts of combative postures. They donned gloves to fight over men whose favours they desired. Strong-willed and deceivedwomenwere shown pummellingmates and lovers within an inch of their lives. Moreover, he had no compunction about labelling an altercation between chorus girls ‘an athletic or a boxing contest’.55 These motifs were among his favourites.

Fox also could also be complimentary about female boxers. During the 1880s Hattie Stewart of Norfolk, Virginia, appeared in all the leading East Coast theatres. Standing 5 ft 7 in., she was said to be an excellent ‘specimen of physical development, and stripped looked a perfect amazon’. Her right cross, it was claimed, was similar to that of John L. Sullivan. Ostensibly Stewart could hold her own with at least some male boxers. Hattie Leslie, who boxed for several years, was said to be Stewart’s equal. She was described as tall, powerful and possessed of great quickness. The National Police Gazette featured Stewart several times, and in 1890 depicted her in a typical raised-fist pugilistic pose alongside two other female boxers who were touring under the tutelage of ‘Professor’ Alf Ball. Anna Lewis, born in 1856, was said to be 5 ft 8 in. and 155 lb with arm and chest muscles ‘as hard as iron’. In the early 1890s, Zella Fillmore issued challenges to meet any woman her weight (142 lb).56 Although interest in such contests decreased, some women continued to appear in special matches or on the vaudeville circuit. Seven young women participated in a Female Sparring Tournament at Philadelphia’s Brandenburgh Museum in 1901. In 1906, Philadelphia’s ‘Texas Mamie’ (a bag puncher as well as a boxer) announced her willingness to meet any woman her weight for prize money.57 Female wrestlers also gained attention. In 1891 Alice Williams issued a challenge to the English female champion or any other woman in Britain or America to engage in a Greco-Roman or catch-as-catch-can best two of three falls match for stake money between $250 and $1,000. In the fall of 1905, a sextet billed as the International Woman Wrestling Troupe toured the East Coast. Strongwomen like Josie Wohlford, Mlle. Victorine, and Fannie Onri and ‘well-muscled’ trapeze performers like Josie Jordan seemed almost too numerous to count. The press, never entirely sure whether to cast them as entertainers or athletes, generally included at least some favourable remarks about their strength.58

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Sporting events and exhibitions such as these do not exhaust performances in which females engaged during the last decades of the nineteenth century that have been largely ignored by historians. In 1868, 17–year-old Annie Clara Jagerisky had ice skated for thirty hours. Women in Chicago arranged for a billiard room, gymnasium and bowling alley to be installed in their club rooms in the 1870s; they were by no means the only ones to engage in these activities. According to one report, women bowlers in the late 1890s were proving to be as accomplished at the game as were men; a Milwaukee woman’s team was said to frequently outscore local men’s teams. In winter, women ice skated at Central Park, on artificially frozen water at Gilmore’s Gardens, and at many other places. When roller skating became a fad in the 1870s and again in the 1880s, many took it up as recreation. For a few it was a competitive sport. Twelve-year-old Tillie Johnson of Seattle, Washington beat the Pacific Coast skating champion in 1885.59

Bag punchers such as Ada Sandry and Belle Gordon were feted during the 1890s and early 1900s. Gordon was said to be ‘the first woman to master the art’ and able to defeat manymen.60 It was not only on the frontier that females engaged in horse racing for money. Reports such as that of a ladies equestrian race at the ‘grand military festival’ at West Flushing, New York in 1871 were dotted throughout the literature. In 1883, Nellie Burke of Omaha, Nebraska, challenged the female ‘champions’ of England, California, Minnesota, Colorado, and other states to engage her in 10- or 20- mile horse races for $1,000 a side. Annie Oakley, billed as the ‘female champion rifle, wing and trick shot’, was by no means the only markswoman. Some thought rider and shooterMay Lillie to be even better. In 1891,WildWest Show proprietor ‘Pawnee Bill’ promised to wager $1,000 on her ability to outshoot anyone from a moving horse using aWinchester repeating rifle. Other noted shooters were Colorado’s Nettie Littell (‘Little Rifle’) and Texas’s Rosy Gordon (‘The Prairie Flower’). Ten-year-old Lillian Smith of Merced, California, who apparently went on to a career in vaudeville, broke 495 of 500 glass balls thrown into the air. Millie Drunkler performed acrobatic feats while accurately firing a gun.61 Most of these women, whether pedestriennes, cyclists, boxers, shooters, or more, were well-treated in comparison to the intense criticisms that the press levelled against those who dared take up baseball – the ‘national game’ – the sport with which all red-blooded American men and boys identified.

Dare Females Essay ‘The National Game’?

It requires agility and coordination but not great endurance or muscular strength to play a passable game of baseball. The better pedestriennes had demonstrated that some women possessed remarkable endurance. Female boxers, wrestlers, weightlif- ters, and ring swingers were living proof that members of their sex could have considerable muscular strength. Why, then, did the press express so much antipathy to female baseballists?

Not too long after the game of baseball had evolved from rounders, occasional short-lived teams were being organised at small women’s colleges. Writing in the late 1890s, Sophia Foster Richardson referred to ‘seven or eight baseball clubs’ that had sprung upwhen shewas a student at Vassar College during the 1870s. The public would have been ‘shocked’ but on their sheltered campuses away from public vision the young women had found their games to be pleasant diversions.62 The first women to play baseball for pay, according to Barbara Gregorich, were the ‘Blonds and Brunettes’, who took to the field at Springfield, Illinois, in 1875.63 In August 1883, 16 young

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women, aided by two young lads, played nine innings before several hundred people at Pastime Park in Philadelphia. Reporting on this event, theNewYorkHerald noted that the ball regularly slipped through the players’ hands and that theywere otherwise inept. They had, however, comported themselves with ‘dignity and perfect modesty’. For its part, theNewYork Times announced that it was ‘very doubtful’ that girls could ever be made ‘efficient base-ball players’.64 A month later the New York Times described a game at the Manhattan Athletic Club’s Grounds as ‘A Base-Ball Burlesque’ played by totally inept ‘blondes and brunettes toying with the bat’. The snide comments made about the ‘assorted shapes and sizes’ of the players were interlaced with the allegation that most were ‘graduates of Sunday-schools and normal colleges, who had seen the vanity of Greek and Latin and yearned for the examples of the great and good students of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton by traveling wholly on their muscles’.65

Occasionally some enterprising individual would attempt to launch a profes- sional women’s team. One such instance occurred in 1883 when Mr Freeman organized the Female Base Ball Club in Philadelphia. The team, it was claimed, soon had exhausted local interest and departed for Cincinnati and St Louis. Confronted by increasing debts, the manager disappeared and it became necessary to call on the goodwill of local citizens to raise the rail fare needed to send the young women home. The following year the team embarked for the Southeast to take advantage of the 1884 New Orleans Exposition. In a biting article entitled ‘The Female Tramps’, Sporting Life decried the ‘brazen manner’ of the players and implied that Freeman had envisioned for them activities other than baseball. ‘The female’, the writer intoned, ‘has no place in base ball except to the degradation of the game’.66

Given its intense devotion to the ‘national pastime’ and incessant adulation of male players, it is not surprising that Sporting Lifewas vehemently against females engaging in baseball. More than once it denounced female baseball clubs and their managers, who, it claimed, repeatedly ‘nauseated’ the country with their spectacles. In 1890 the National Police Gazette reported that W.S. Franklin was advertising for players and intended to start six or eight clubs, the Chicago Black Stockings being one of the first. Fox had little affection for the game of baseball; and he was less antagonistic towards women who played it than were writers for Sporting Life. As was typical he sensationalised the bloomer costume and black and red striped short skirts that the Chicago Black Stockings players wore, but Fox also noted that the women seemed to enjoy the game and were not especially bothered by the importuning of spectators.67

In late August 1890, when the Chicago Black Stockings played the men’s semi- professional Allerton Baseball Club of Weehawken, New Jersey, some 7,000 spectators paid to watch what the New York Herald described as a ‘ludicrous’ excuse of baseball. The women, the writer claimed, were both inept and vulgar. In the seventh inning hoodlums closed around the diamond. Thereupon Nellie Williams, depicted as ‘a short haired, square jawed Amazon’, cleared a space with her bat. Fights broke out and the players were finally taken away in carriages. At the same time that these altercations were occurring, two teams of women from the Harvard Social Association were playing each other at Huguenot, Staten Island. In the third inning a police inspector arrived and stopped the game in spite of objections from the crowd. Apparently this was not the only time the police intervened. In 1913 two teams calling themselves the New York Female Giants appeared at Lenox Oval. In the seventh inning, with the score 6–4 in favour of the ‘Blues’, Sargent Mahoney presented a summons to the ‘Reds’ third baseman Helen Genker, much to the disappointment of some 1,500 spectators who thought the Blues’ shortstop to be a

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veritable female Honus Wagner, the famous National League shortstop.68 In his lengthy 1911 book, America’s National Game Albert Spalding, co-founder of the influential and lucrative A.G. Spalding Sporting Goods Company, had stated that although women might play cricket, lawn tennis, or even basketball ‘neither our wives, our sisters, our daughters, nor our sweethearts, may play Base Ball on the field’. The reason, he maintained, was that baseball was ‘too strenuous for womankind’.69 Spalding, like many other American males, was devoted to baseball as ‘the national game’ and did not want it to be tainted by females – especially if some of them possessed considerable skill when playing it.

A much more positive view of the numerous ‘bloomer’ baseball teams that played between 1890 and 1920 – as well as the skill of players like Lizzie Arlington, the first woman to sign a minor league contract – is offered in Gregorich’sWomen at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball. Possibly the National Police Gazette was beginning to agree for it captioned a picture of the 1901 Boston Bloomer Ladies Baseball Club ‘They Can Play Ball’. The team, which had been organised in 1893 byW.P. Needham, had played regularly in cities and towns throughout Canada and the United States. It was currently making a Ninth Annual Tour in an elegant Pullman car.70

A Few Concluding Observations

The accomplishments of those late nineteenth-century female pedestrians, cyclists, boxers, wrestlers, swimmers, and other women who engaged in ‘professional’ and various now rarely thought of sporting events offer a considerably different view of the abilities of females than do accounts of the ‘new athletic woman’ (those who by the 1890s were engaging in a refined game of tennis or golf or taking a leisurely turn on the bicycle) that were portrayed in Scribner’s Magazine and other publications intended for a discriminating audience. The longest Olympic competitive running event for females today, the 10,000-metre run, is far shorter than the distance pedestrienne Ada Anderson walked in 1879. Granted the Olympic Games provide quite a different context, it would be wrong to think that women’s wrestling at Athens in 2004 was a unique event or that women’s boxing at the 2012 London Games will be. More than a century ago there were hundreds of females who by engaging in a variety of sports – several of whom are now largely forgotten – ‘contested the norm’ regarding what is appropriate for females and what they are capable of achieving.

Notes on Contributor

Roberta J. Park is Professor Emeritus, Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley. She has been President of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, a Vice President of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport, and has been on editorial boards of a number of journals dealing with the history of sport.

Notes

1. These numbers are set forth on the International Olympic Committee’s ‘Factsheet: Women in the Olympic Movement’. Seehttp://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reference_ documents_Factsheets/Women_in_Olympic_Movement.pdf. Other sites specify slightly higher numbers. See for example http://www.olympic.org/Documents/women_ participation_figures_en.pdf; and http://www.olympic.org/women-and-sport/beijing-scores- record-womens-participation (accessed 14 November 2011).

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2. For a useful overview of these two sports, especially since the enactment of Title IX of the 1972 Education Act, see Fields, Female Gladiators, chapter 6 and 7.

3. In the United States most institutions of higher learning receive some form of federal financial funding. Title IX of the Act stated: ‘No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance’. The developments had a positive influence upon high school as well as college programmes. According to a recent posting, before the law was enacted ‘fewer than 300,000 girls participated in high school [interscholastic] sports, compared with 3.5 million boys. By 2007–08, the number of girls participating had grown to 3 million’. See http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6790943/group-sues-title-ix-high-school-enforcement (accessed 25 August 2011).

4. Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct, especially 11–13. 5. Cahn, Coming on Strong, chapter 1. Although brief, the chapter ably sets the stage for

Cahn’s study of developments in women’s sports from the 1890s to the 1990s. The quote is on page 15.

6. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Open_%28tennis%29; and http://www.usga.org/ press_room/USGA-Story/ (accessed 20 August 2011).

7. Pedestrienne was the term frequently used in the late 1800s to refer to a female pedestrian.

8. Clarke, Sex in Education, Or a Fair Chance for Girls. 9. These and related matters are nicely analysed in Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded

Woman, especially chapter 1. 10. Howe, Sex and Education, 32–44; 52–69; and passim. 11. Parkman’s (pp. 510–517) and Stanton’s (pp. 517–524) comments are appended to Lewis,

‘The Health of American Women’. 12. Parkman, ‘The Woman Question’. Although the title might suggest that Parkman was

writing only about women, he repeatedly compared what he deemed to be the innate qualities of men with those of women. The specific quote appears on page 304.

13. Henry W. Slocum, Jr., ‘Lawn Tennis As a Game for Women’, Outing, 1(1889), 294. 14. Banta, Imaging American Women, 83–91. The appearance of the two-wheel ‘safety

bicycle’ had made it possible for growing numbers of ‘genteel ladies’ to engage in excursions outdoors.

15. Ibid., xxvii–xxxi; and 50–52. 16. Beard and Beard, The American Girls Handy Book, 1. 17. See, for example, Brailsford, Sport, Time, and Society, 133–134; Park, ‘From ‘‘Genteel

Diversions’’ to ‘‘Bruising Peg’’’, 31–33; Boulton, The Amusements of Old London, 30–31. 18. Radford, The Celebrated Captain Barclay; Radford, ‘Women’s Foot-Races in the 18th

and 19th Centuries’. 19. Guttmann, Women’s Sports, chapter. 7; Shaulis, ‘Pedestriennes; Sears, Running Through

the Ages; Hargreaves, Heroines of Sport; and Hargreaves, Sporting Females. 20. ‘Swimming’, The Times, 5 September 1875 and 20 September 1875; and New York

Clipper Almanac for 1876 (New York: Frank Queen, 1876), 46. Webb had swum from Dover, England to Calais, France in 21 hours and 45 minutes on 24 and 25 August 1875. Beckwith completed her swim on 1 September; and Parker hers on 18 September. See also, ‘The Mermaid of the Thames’, Spirit of the Times, 9 October 1875.

21. ‘A Plucky English Girl’, Spirit of the Times, 22 July 1876; and ‘Feminine Aquatics’, Spirit of the Times, 12 August 1876.

22. ‘Ladies Swimming for a Prize’, Sporting Life, 13 August 1883; ‘Swimming: Captain Webb’s Fate’, New York Times, 6 August 1883; ‘Swimming on the East River’, Sporting Life, 10 September 1884; ‘A Naid Queen’, National Police Gazette, 28 December 1889; ‘A Pretty Swimmer’, National Police Gazette, 3 May 1890; and ‘Girl to Swim Niagara’s Rapids’, National Police Gazette, 17 August 1901.

23. The Tenth Annual Regatta of the Empire City Rowing Club was announced in the New York Times (26 September 1871). Available at: http://www.northnet.org/stlawrencea auw/nystime.htm.

24. The 1867 race was noted in an article entitled ‘Women in the Prize Ring’, National Police Gazette, 14 September 1892; ‘Womans Rights’, The Times, 9 August 1870; ‘Summer

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Recreations: The Girl of the Period as an Oars-man’, New York Clipper, 20 August 1870; ‘Tenth Annual Regatta of the Empire City Rowing Club’, New York Times, 26 September 1871; ‘Tenth Annual Regatta of the Empire City Rowing Club’, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 14 October 1871; and ‘The Girls’ Regatta’, National Police Gazette, 5 October 1878.

25. ‘Women at the Oar’, Sporting Life, 20 August 1884; and ‘The Austin Regatta’, Frank Leslie’s Weekly, 5 December 1895. For sports in early women’s colleges, see Spears and Swanson, History of Sport and Physical Activity in the United States, 124–128.

26. ‘The Champion Bicyclists’, National Police Gazette, 10 May 1884. See also, ‘Beauty on Wheels’, National Police Gazette, 1 September 1883.

27. ‘Hattie Stewart’, National Police Gazette, 17 May 1884; ‘Female Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 11 March 1886; and ‘Women in the Prize Ring’, National Police Gazette, 14 September 1892.

28. ‘Gordon and Lozay’, National Police Gazette, 20 January 1900; ‘Four Hot Rounds’, National Police Gazette, 8 December 1900; ‘They Are All Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 26 January 1901; and ‘Texas Mamie’, National Police Gazette, 28 July 1906.

29. See, for example, Sears, Running Through the Ages, chapter 5 (especially pages 129–149); Lucas and Smith, Saga of American Sport, 97–98; and 165–66; Lucas, ‘Pedestrianism and the Struggle for the Sir John Astley Belt’; and ‘Sir John Astley’, Sporting Mirror 1 (1881): 3–7.

30. A book canvasser was a door-to-door salesperson. 31. ‘Athletics’, Spirit of the Times, 19 February 1876; ‘Female Pedestrianism’, Spirit of the

Times, 11 November 1876; ‘Female Endurance’, Spirit of the Times, 25 November 1876; ‘Pedestrianism: The Female Walkers’, Chicago Tribune, 30 January 1876; ‘Pedestrianism: The Walking Women’, Chicago Tribune, 3 February 1876; ‘Pedestrianism: Von Hillern- Marshall’, Chicago Tribune, 4 February 1876; ‘An Interesting Walk’, Spirit of the Times, 28 October 1876; ‘Female Pedestrianism’, Spirit of the Times, 18 November 1876; ‘Female Endurance’, Spirit of the Times, 25 November 1876; and ‘Athletics’, Spirit of the Times, 19 February 1876.

32. ‘Pedestrianism’, The Times, 1 September 1876. 33. James, Practical Training; ‘Lenardsen, The Trainer: Deserting His Wife and Children for

a Female Pedestrian’, New York Times, 28 April 1879. See also ‘Wins Prize With 500 Miles’, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 October 1879.

34. ‘Novel Pedestrian Contest’, National Police Gazette, 14 December 1878; ‘The Female Pedestrian’, New York Times, 9 January 1879; and ‘Pedestrianism: Madame Anderson’s Walk of a Quarter Miles Every Five Minutes for Six Days’, The Times, 26 August 1878.

35. ‘Walking and Running’, New York Herald, 2 January 1879; ‘Mme. Anderson’, New York Herald, 11 January 1879; ‘The Female Pedestrian’, New York Times, 12 January 1879; ‘Walking Day and Night’, New York Times 13 January 1879; ‘A Great Pedestrian Feat’, New York Times, 14 January 1879; and ‘Madame Anderson Wins’, New York Herald, 14 January 1879. (Anderson had walked a quarter of a mile every 15 minutes over 28 consecutive days.)

36. ‘Madame Anderson Wins’, The World, 14 January 1879; and ‘A Walking Wonder’, Boston Globe, 14 January 1879.

37. ‘Madame Anderson’s Plucky Walk’, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1 February 1879. Anderson was accompanied by her husband, a stout German named Foley, and her attendant Miss Sparrow, who had also accompanied her from England.

38. ‘Another Female Pedestrian’, New York Times, 26 January 1879; ‘The Mania for Walking’, New York Times, 2 February 1879; and‘Miss Bartell’s Walk Ended’, New York Times, 3 February 1879. It was said that the event had been arranged by the wife of Bartell’s trainer John Hughes (a rival pedestrian to Daniel O’Leary, an Irish-American who had competed against Weston).

39. ‘Four Rivals of Mme. Anderson Walking’, New York Times, 13 February 1879; ‘Walking in Six Cities’, New York Times, 14 February 1879; and ‘The Female Pedestrian’, New York Times, 4 April, 1879.

40. ‘Muscular Movements: Miss Reynolds’ Ramble Around Revere Hall’, Boston Globe, 18 February 1879; ‘The Muscular Mania’, Boston Globe, 19 February 1879; ‘Miss Reynolds

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Pluckily Plodding Along’, Boston Globe, 21 February 1879; ‘The Mania’, Boston Globe, 23 February 1879; ‘Miss Reynolds and Her Walk at Revere Hall’, Boston Globe, 23 February 1879; and ‘Lady Pedestrians’, Boston Globe, 28 February 1879. A match between Miss Bessie Krohn (recently arrived from Copenhagen) and a local Bostonian named Miss Sherman also was contemplated.

41. ‘Pedestrianism’, Chicago Tribune, 10 February 1879; ‘Pedestrianism’, Chicago Tribune 12 February 1879; and ‘Pedestrianism’, Chicago Tribune 14 February 1879. (La Chapelle’s diet consisted largely of beef tea and eggs. When the pedestrienne seemed to be flagging, her physician recommended ‘sherry and egg’ as a stimulant.).

42. ‘Female Walkers at Philadelphia’, Baltimore American, 24 March 1879; ‘The Walking Women’, Spirit of the Times, 19 April 1879; and ‘The Women’s Walking Match’, New York Times, 1 April 1879; and ‘The Cruel Tramp Ended’, New York Times, 3 April 1879.

43. ‘Miss Bela Killbury, Female Pedestrian’, National Police Gazette, 15 March 1879. 44. ‘Pedestrianism Gone Mad’, New York Times, 14 February 1879; and ‘The Walkers

Falling Off’, New York Times, 18 April 1879. 45. ‘The Lady Contestants’, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 October 1879; ‘Striding to Success’,

San Francisco Chronicle, 14 October 1879; ‘Sport in California’, Spirit of the Times, 1 November 1879; ‘Pedestrian Notes’ Spirit of the Times, 4 October 1879; ‘Pedestrian Notes’, Spirit of the Times, 8 November 1879; ‘Pedestrian Notes’, Spirit of the Times, 6 December, 1879; ‘Alleged Sport in California’, Spirit of the Times, 31 January 1880; and ‘Pedestrian Notes’, Spirit of the Times, 15 May 1880. For an example of such cartoons, see the last page of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 15 February 1879.

46. ‘Madame du Pree’, National Police Gazette, 12 November 1881; ‘Amy Howard’s Great Walk’, National Police Gazette, 15 July 1882; and ‘Pedestrianism Abroad’, Sporting Life, 9 April 1884. According to the 17 October 1884 Sporting Life, Bella Killbury had just received money for winning a six-day race at Louisville.

47. ‘The Walking Women’, Spirit of the Times, 5 April 1879. 48. ‘The Pretty Pedestrians’, National Police Gazette, 12 April 1879. 49. ‘A Stupid Sport’, Saturday Review, 25 January 1879, 114–115. 50. ‘Miss Elsa Von Blumen’, National Police Gazette, 2 September 1882; and ‘The Champion

Bicyclists’, National Police Gazette, 10 May 1884. See also, ‘Beauty on Wheels’, National Police Gazette, 1 September 1 1883; and Richie, King of the Road.

51. ‘Bicycle vs. Horses’, Sporting Life, 13 August 1884; ‘The Lady Beaten’, Sporting Life, 26 November 1884; and ‘The Wheel’, Sporting Life, 31 December 1884.

52. ‘Fair Laundress in a Race’, National Police Gazette, 4 November 1899; ‘Hot Scorcher’, National Police Gazette, 27 May 1889; and ‘Bicyclist Lottie Stanley’, National Police Gazette, 27 April 1889. The New York Clipper Almanac included information about contests like sawing logs in its Miscellaneous Records column. For British entries, see the New York Clipper Almanac for 1900.

53. ‘It Wasn’t In Earnest’, National Police Gazette, 1 February 1902. 54. ‘Battle Between Fair Pugilists’, National Police Gazette, 12 October 1878; ‘Sundry

Sports’, Chicago Tribune, 9 February 1879; ‘Miss Alice Jennings, Champion Female Boxer’, National Police Gazette, 15 April 1882; and ‘Daisy Daly, Female Boxer’, National Police Gazette, 10 February 1883.

55. ‘Miss Lena Aberle’s Alleged Pugilistic Exploit’, National Police Gazette, 15 March 1879; ‘Two Beautiful ‘‘Sluggers’’’, National Police Gazette, 4 March 1882; ‘Female Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 11 March 1885; ‘Pugilistic Females’, National Police Gazette, 5 October 1889; and ‘She Landed Hard’, National Police Gazette, 6 April 1901.

56. ‘Hattie Stewart’, National Police Gazette, 17 May 1884; ‘Women in the Prize Ring’, National Police Gazette, 14 September 1892; ‘Anna Lewis’, National Police Gazette, 25 October 1884; ‘A Female Boxer’, National Police Gazette, 16 November 1889; ‘Colored Female Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 6 September 1890; and ‘Miss Hatti Leslie, The Late Champion Female Boxer’, National Police Gazette, 8 October 1892. See also, ‘Female Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 11 March 1886.

57. ‘Gordon and Lozay’, National Police Gazette, 20 January 1900; ‘Four Hot Rounds’, National Police Gazette, 8 December 1900; ‘They Are All Boxers’, National Police Gazette, 26 January 1901; and ‘Texas Mamie’, National Police Gazette, 28 July 1906.

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58. ‘Letter’, National Police Gazette, 28 March 1891, cited in Smith and Barry Smith, The National Police Gazette, 134–135; ‘Miss Josie Wohlford’, National Police Gazette, 28 February 1891; ‘Miss Josie Jordan’s Remarkable Physical Development’, National Police Gazette, 7 November 1896; ‘Observe the Lady’s Muscles’, National Police Gazette, 9 November 1901; ‘International Women’s Wrestling Troupe’, National Police Gazette, 21 October 1905; and ‘Only a Question of Time’, National Police Gazette, 18 November 1905.

59. ‘Skating’, New York Clipper Almanac for 1875, 53; ‘Belles of the Bowling Alley’, National Police Gazette, 26 October 1878; ‘The Latest Female Athletic Sport’, National Police Gazette, 13 December 1884; ‘In the Bowlers’ Corner’, National Police Gazette, 13 February 1897; ‘Dainty Bowlers Make Big Scores’, National Police Gazette, 2 March 1901; and ‘Roller Rinkler’, National Police Gazette, 4 April 1885.

60. ‘Bag-Punching As an Art’, National Police Gazette, 13 July 1901. 61. ‘The Festival For the Union Home School’, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 21

October 1871; ‘Miss Nellie Burke’, National Police Gazette, 3 November 1883; ‘Miss Lillian Smith’, National Police Gazette, 6 December 1881; ‘The Trigger’, Sporting Life, 10 January 1891; ‘Shoots Like a Man’, National Police Gazette, 30 April 1892; and ‘Acrobatic Rifle Shooting’, National Police Gazette, 3 December 1892.

62. Richardson, ‘Tendencies in Athletics for Women in Colleges and Universities’. 63. Gregorich, Women at Play, 4–5. 64. ‘Ladies on the Ball Field’, New York Herald, 20 August 1883; and ‘Female Base-Ball’,

New York Times, 21 August 1883. 65. ‘A Base-Ball Burlesque’, New York Times, 20 September 1883. 66. ‘The Female Players’, Sporting Life, 5 December 1883; and ‘The Female Tramps’,

Sporting Life, 24 December 1884. 67. ‘A Disgraceful Move’, Sporting Life, 30 August 1890; ‘The Daises of the Diamond Field’,

National Police Gazette, 29 September 1883; ‘Young Lady Baseballists’, National Police Gazette, 29 September 1890; and ‘Athletic Girls Play Ball’, National Police Gazette, 1 July 1899.

68. ‘Lady Champions at Ball’, New York Herald, 1 September 1890; and ‘Girls’ Ball Game Stops’, New York Times, 26 May 1913.

69. Spalding, America’s National Game, chapter 1. 70. Gregorich, Women at Play, 5; and ‘They Can Play Ball’, National Police Gazette, 24

August 1901.

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