CONCEPT OF MODERN SPORT  The basis of modern organized team sport emerged in the early days of American baseball, which gained popularity in the mid-nineteenth century.

 American city dwellers increased due to immigration, industrialization, and the growth of new occupations.  The city became the focal point of modern sport.  Health and sport reformers  Sport and physical recreation as an antidote to the effects of long hours of work, school study, and intellectual business pursuits for many white Americans of the middle class.  Sport a central part of urban American life in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. URBANIZATION

 Key characteristics of modern sport  Secularism  Equality  Rationalism  Bureaucratic Organizations  Quantification  The quest for records DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SPORTING FORMS

INFLUENCE OF TRANSPORTATION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SPORT  Major urban centers served as hubs for railroad routes became key in the rise of sport.  Moving goods and humans faster over long distances and playing a crucial role in bringing people together to play and watch urban sports in larger numbers.  Cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis.

INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA ON MODERN SPORT  Sport coverage grew in newspapers and sporting journals

 Sub communities based on social class and status

YACHTING  To show the supremacy of American yachtsmen by taking on the mighty British yachtsmen of the 1850s.

 Boating and rowing were typically seen as male pursuits.

RACKET SPORTS TENNISRACKETBALL

SPORTING FRATERNITY  Groups referred to as the “sporting fraternity” engaged in sports of various moral and physical dimensions.

BOXING  The sporting fraternity relished the pugilism found in the taverns, gambling institutions, and other facilities of the Victorian underworld.

TAVERNS AND BILLIARD HALLS  The saloons and taverns fostered competitive games, sports, and drinking.

PEDESTRIANISM  In this period of early commercialized sport  Pedestrianism was a sport with more modern characteristics than mere footraces  Provided early opportunities for working- class athletes to earn an income with their physical prowess.  SPEED WALKING SPEED WALKING

HORSE RACING THOROUGHBRED  As a sport popular with both owners and the spectators who gathered at the track, and the sporting fraternity patronized the races. HARNESS RACING

GROWTH OF SPORTS CLUBS AND ADVANCING REGIONAL RECREATION  The rise of American sport in the nineteenth century was shaped considerably by the interest of citizens of differing social, ethnic, racial, and religious groups.

GYMNASTICS AND ACTIVE BODIES  Gymnastics as a powerful way to offset the ill effects of sedentary urban life  Gymnastics became part of a physical education movement  Featuring various forms of physical exercise promoted by instructors.

YMCA  The Young Men’s Christian Association, founded in England in 1844  Developed in the United States in  The YMCA promoted a Protestant brand of Christianity  Later began offering gymnasium facilities as an inducement to attract patrons to its cause.  YMCA became a site of moral and physical activity for young urban men.  YMCA facilities meant that young men might learn about both Christianity and sport, engaging in reading, recreation, and fellowship in a moral and safe environment.

YMHA  In 1854, in Baltimore, Maryland  A group of Jews established the first Young Men’s Hebrew Association  Initially called the Young Men’s Hebrew Literary Association  Marking the beginning of the YMHA movement in America  To promote literary, social, moral, and athletic activities for Jewish youth.

LADIES AUXILIARIES OF SPORTING AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS  Women formed their own Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Boston  Offered callisthenic classes for women.

GROWTH OF AMERICAN TEAM SPORTS AND COMPETITION  Marked by emphasis on competition, rules, associations of clubs, interest in performance and the keeping of statistics and records, and the spread of information about sports and the players.

EMERGENCE OF BASEBALL  The tradition of bat-and-ball games played by young men and boys prior to the 1840s and 1850s evolved into the popular pastime of baseball.

HENRY CHADWICK

ALEXANDER CARTWRIGHT  Alexander Cartwright of the New York Knickerbockers baseball club, recorded the rules in  “Father of American Baseball”

 The English sport of cricket proved immensely popular as part of their sporting heritage.  Cricket, in fact, preceded baseball as a team sport followed by spectators,—a national pastime  In the 1850s interest in American identity at this time spurred baseball to wider appeal, and baseball would surpass cricket as an expression of national strength in sport.  Cricket was considered the first major organized American team sport

RISE OF INTERCOLLEGIATE SPORT  By the mid- 1840s and 1850s, the sport of rowing enjoyed considerable popularity.

CIVIL WAR AND SPORTING EXPERIENCE  The Northern states, transformed by industrialization and urbanization and critical to the sporting boom in the mid-nineteenth century.

CIVIL WAR STATS   620,000 soldiers were killed  America’s bloodiest war

THE EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR UPON AMERICA  At first, Army recruiting destroyed organized sports (baseball clubs, for example)  However, soldiers organized themselves into company teams and regimental leagues.  The Civil War introduced thousands of men to new sporting ideas and practices.

 By the end of the war (1865) more Americans participated in organized sports than ever before.  What did they play?  Baseball  Football  Shooting matches  Pedestrian races  Boxing  gymnastics THE EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR UPON AMERICA

 After the war, veterans went home with a new appreciation of sports.  Legacy - something handed down from the past.  Legacy of the Civil War:  It provided an example to the belief that conflict between individuals, classes, and nations lay at the heart of human existence. THE EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR UPON AMERICA