Patriotic games: sporting traditions in the American imagination, 1876-1926

Abstract

In Patriotic Games, historian Stephen Pope explores the ways sport was transformed from a mere amusement into a metaphor for American life. Between the 1890s and the 1920s, sport became the most pervasive popular cultural activity in American society. Pope demonstrates how America's sporting tradition emerged from a society fractured along class, race, ethnic, and gender lines. In a time of social tensions, economic downturns, and unprecendented immigration, the rituals and enthusiasms of sport, Pope argues, became a central component in the shaping of America's national identity.