KIN 481: Social History of Sport
Welcome to KIN 481: Social History of Sport! This is an upper-level class for the Sport Studies Option in the Department of Kinesiology at the California State University, Northridge. On this page, you will fine a list of online lecture videos, listed in course sequence. Each title is a clickable link to download the video. If you want to learn more about me, start with the video linked here: Welcome to my courses!
Course Description
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Physical education (or P.E.), what we now call kinesiology, began at the end of the nineteenth century. Between 1880 and 1900, according to sport scholar Joan Paul, P.E. went through its “embryonic period.” This era corresponds with the second industrial revolution in Western culture as well as the period in which organized sport began to flourish. It was an era that saw many changes to the society, including changes in cultures, technology, business, organizational structures, and, for the purposes of this course, sport, leisure, physical education, exercise, and many other forms of what we will call “physical culture.” Therefore, throughout this course, we will focus on topics beginning in the last decades of the 19th century and throughout the 20th.
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We will focus our historical sensibilities on Raymond Williams’ concept of “residual culture.” Williams believes that at all times, there are three forms of “culture” in conflict with each other—dominant, emergent, and residual. This course will focus on residual culture, which according to Williams, is influenced “on the basis of the residue—cultural as well as social—of some previous social formation” (p. 10). What he means is that if we want to understand society, we must consider how the past has affected and continues to affect the present. Therefore, when we consider physical culture in the twenty-first century, we must look at the residues of that culture and understand how past formations affect the present day.
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Course Lecture Videos
Understanding the Social History of Sport
Deaf Athletes in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America
The “Frailty Myth”: Medical Science, Victorian Ideology, and Women’s Physical Culture at the Turn-of-the Twentieth Century
From Citrus Fields to Civil Rights: How Corona’s Mexican Americans Used Leisure as Political Organizing in the 1930s and Beyond
The Robinson Brothers: Athletic Achievement and Racial Politics in Pasadena in the Depression, War Years, and Beyond
The Transnational Athletic Citizenship of Carlota Gooden and Marginalized Populations in the 1950s
A Star-Spangled Collision in Athletic Spaces: Music and Sport in the 1960s
Sport and Cold War Politics
Voices from the Gridiron: Women’s Football and Feminist Activism in the 1970s
From Sporting Goods to Cultural Symbols: The Adidas Superstar and Athletic Citizenship in the Late 20th Century
Deaf Athletes in Gilded Age and Progressive Era America
The “Frailty Myth”: Medical Science, Victorian Ideology, and Women’s Physical Culture at the Turn-of-the Twentieth Century
- Supplemental: Olympic ski jumping — watch at the 22 second mark of the lecture
- Supplemental: Dare to Compete documentary excerpt #1 — watch at the 11:52 mark of the lecture
- Supplemental: Dare to Compete documentary excerpt #2 — watch at the 20:03 mark of the lecture
From Citrus Fields to Civil Rights: How Corona’s Mexican Americans Used Leisure as Political Organizing in the 1930s and Beyond
The Robinson Brothers: Athletic Achievement and Racial Politics in Pasadena in the Depression, War Years, and Beyond
The Transnational Athletic Citizenship of Carlota Gooden and Marginalized Populations in the 1950s
A Star-Spangled Collision in Athletic Spaces: Music and Sport in the 1960s
Sport and Cold War Politics
Voices from the Gridiron: Women’s Football and Feminist Activism in the 1970s
From Sporting Goods to Cultural Symbols: The Adidas Superstar and Athletic Citizenship in the Late 20th Century
Oral History Project Video Series
This is a semester-long project that connects you directly to the lived experiences that shaped American sport history before 2000. You'll conduct an oral history interview using the same methodology that social historians use to recover voices and stories often missing from traditional historical accounts.
Before watching the videos, you should read the assignment instructions. Click here for access.
Video 1: Why Oral History Matters + Finding Your Subject
Video 2: Research Like a Detective
Video 3: Asking Great Questions + Interview Day
Video 4: From Recording to Story
Video 5: Show and Tell + Elevator Speech Discussion Post
Before watching the videos, you should read the assignment instructions. Click here for access.
Video 1: Why Oral History Matters + Finding Your Subject
Video 2: Research Like a Detective
Video 3: Asking Great Questions + Interview Day
Video 4: From Recording to Story
Video 5: Show and Tell + Elevator Speech Discussion Post
Bibliography
Academic courses are not a one-person endeavor. They are built on generations of work. Much of my teaching, like everyone’s, is inspired by what I learned in graduate school and as an early career scholar. For me, that was working with my advisor at Penn State, Jaime Schultz, and alongside my cohort of graduate students at both Ohio State and Penn State. On top of that, this course draws on research from scholars spanning generations. Here is a list of the research that influences this course.
Alamillo, José M. Making Lemonade Out of Lemons: Mexican American Labor and Leisure in a California Town, 1880–1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
Ariail, Cat. “Between the Boundaries: The Athletic Citizenship Quest of Carlota Gooden.” Journal of Sport History 44, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 1–19.
Betts, John R. “The Technological Revolution and the Rise of Sport, 1850–1900.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 40, no. 2 (1953): 231–256.
Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’s Sport. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.
Cahn, Susan K. “Sports Talk: Oral History and Its Uses, Problems, and Possibilities for Sport History.” The Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (September 1994): 594–609.
Carrington, Ben. Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010.
Coleman, Annie Gilbert. Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
Cooky, Cheryl. “Girls Just Aren’t Interested: The Social Construction of Interest in Girls’ Sport.” Sociological Perspectives 52, no. 2 (2009): 259–284.
Crepeau, Richard C. “Sport and National Anthem.” On Sport and Society, 1996.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903.
Dulles, Foster Rhea. America Learns to Play: A History of Popular Recreation, 1608–1940. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1940.
Dyreson, Mark. “American Ideas About Race and Olympic Races from the 1890s to the 1950s: Shattering Myths or Reinforcing Scientific Racism?” Journal of Sport History 28, no. 2 (2001): 173–215.
Dyreson, Mark. “Sport History and the History of Sport in America.” Journal of Sport History 35 (2008): 405–414.
Edwards, R. A. R. “No Dummies: Deafness, Baseball, and American Culture.” Sign Language Studies 12, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 171–187.
English, Colleen. “Separate Spheres and Separate Roles: Christian Beliefs, Medical Ideology, and Women’s Sport and Physical Activity in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century United States.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 39, no. 4 (2022): 350–365.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
Gannon, Jack R. Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2012.
Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (1972): 1–37.
Gorn, Elliott J. The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Gubar, Susan. Racechanges: Black Skin, White Face in American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Hult, Joan S. “The Governance of Athletics for Girls and Women: Leadership by Women Physical Educators, 1899–1949.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Centennial Issue (1985): 64–77.
James, C. L. R. Beyond a Boundary. London: Hutchinson, 1963.
Kaliss, Gregory. "'Never Go Back': Pasadena Racial Politics and the Robinson Brothers." In La Sports: Play, Games, and Community in the City of Angels, edited by Wayne Wilson and David K. Wiggins, 149–65. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2018.
Liberti, Rita. “‘We Were Ladies, We Just Played Like Boys’: African American Womanhood and Competitive Basketball at Bennett College, 1928–1942.” In Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America, edited by Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, 101–118. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Linden, Andrew D. “History of Sport and Physical Activity.” In Foundations of Kinesiology, edited by Carole A. Oglesby, Kim Henige, Douglas W. McLaughlin, and Belinda Stillwell. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2021.
Linden, Andrew D. “Revolution on the American Gridiron: Gender, Contested Space, and Women’s Football in the 1970s.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 18 (2015): 2171–2189.
Mellis, Johanna. "Cold War Politics and the California Running Scene: The Experiences of Mihály Iglói and László Tábori in the Golden State." Journal of Sport History 46, no. 1 (2019): 62–81.
Miller, Patrick B., and David K. Wiggins, eds. Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Moore, Louis. I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880–1915. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Murray Phillip, G. “Chapter 30: Deaf and Disability Sport,” by Danielle Peers. In Routledge Handbook of Sport History, edited by G. Murray Phillip, Douglas Booth, and Carly Adams. New York: Routledge, 2021.
Paul, Joan. “Centuries of Change: Movement’s Many Faces.” Quest 48, no. 4 (1996): 531–545.
Paxson, Frederick Logan. “The Rise of Sport.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4, no. 2 (1917): 143–168.
Pieper, Lindsay Parks. Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sports. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
Purkiss, Ava. Fit Citizens: A History of Black Women’s Exercise from Post-Reconstruction to Postwar America. Gender and American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
Riess, Steven A. Major Problems in American Sport History. 2nd ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015.
Schultz, Jaime, and Andrew D. Linden. “From Ladies’ Days to Women’s Initiatives: American Pastimes and Distaff Consumption.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 31, no. 1–2 (2014): 156–180.
Schultz, Jaime. Women’s Sports: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Schultz, Jaime. “Racialized Osteology and Athletic Aptitude, or ‘Black’ Bones as Red Herrings.” Journal of Sport History 46, no. 3 (2019): 325–346.
Sherman, Erik. Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023.
Sturtevant, Paul B. “History Is Not a Useless Major: Fighting Myths with Data.” Perspectives on History, April 1, 2017.
Taylor, Karen, Andrew D. Linden, and Dunja Antunovic. “‘From Beach Nymph to Gridiron Amazon’: Media Coverage of Women in American Football, 1934–1979.” Communication & Sport (2019), OnlineFirst.
Turner, Thomas. "German Sports Shoes, Basketball, and Hip Hop: The Consumption and Cultural Significance of the adidas 'Superstar', 1966–1988." Sport in History 35, no. 1 (2015): 127–155.
Thomas, Damion L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Vertinsky, Patricia A. “Exercise, Physical Capability, and the Eternally Wounded Woman in Late Nineteenth Century North America.” Journal of Sport History 14 (1987): 7–27.
Way, Peter. “Evil Humors and Ardent Spirits: The Rough Culture of Canal Construction Laborers.” The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1397–1428.
Wiggins, David K., and Brenda P. Wiggins. “Striving to Be in the Profession and of It: The African American Experience in Physical Education and Kinesiology.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 82, no. 2 (2011): 320–333.
Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.” New Left Review I, no. 82 (1973): 3–16.
Wiltse, Jeff. Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Zang, David W. SportsWars: Athletes in the Age of Aquarius. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2001.
Alamillo, José M. Making Lemonade Out of Lemons: Mexican American Labor and Leisure in a California Town, 1880–1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.
Ariail, Cat. “Between the Boundaries: The Athletic Citizenship Quest of Carlota Gooden.” Journal of Sport History 44, no. 1 (Spring 2017): 1–19.
Betts, John R. “The Technological Revolution and the Rise of Sport, 1850–1900.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 40, no. 2 (1953): 231–256.
Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women’s Sport. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.
Cahn, Susan K. “Sports Talk: Oral History and Its Uses, Problems, and Possibilities for Sport History.” The Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (September 1994): 594–609.
Carrington, Ben. Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2010.
Coleman, Annie Gilbert. Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
Cooky, Cheryl. “Girls Just Aren’t Interested: The Social Construction of Interest in Girls’ Sport.” Sociological Perspectives 52, no. 2 (2009): 259–284.
Crepeau, Richard C. “Sport and National Anthem.” On Sport and Society, 1996.
Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903.
Dulles, Foster Rhea. America Learns to Play: A History of Popular Recreation, 1608–1940. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1940.
Dyreson, Mark. “American Ideas About Race and Olympic Races from the 1890s to the 1950s: Shattering Myths or Reinforcing Scientific Racism?” Journal of Sport History 28, no. 2 (2001): 173–215.
Dyreson, Mark. “Sport History and the History of Sport in America.” Journal of Sport History 35 (2008): 405–414.
Edwards, R. A. R. “No Dummies: Deafness, Baseball, and American Culture.” Sign Language Studies 12, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 171–187.
English, Colleen. “Separate Spheres and Separate Roles: Christian Beliefs, Medical Ideology, and Women’s Sport and Physical Activity in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century United States.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 39, no. 4 (2022): 350–365.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
Gannon, Jack R. Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2012.
Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Daedalus 101, no. 1 (1972): 1–37.
Gorn, Elliott J. The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Gubar, Susan. Racechanges: Black Skin, White Face in American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Hult, Joan S. “The Governance of Athletics for Girls and Women: Leadership by Women Physical Educators, 1899–1949.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport Centennial Issue (1985): 64–77.
James, C. L. R. Beyond a Boundary. London: Hutchinson, 1963.
Kaliss, Gregory. "'Never Go Back': Pasadena Racial Politics and the Robinson Brothers." In La Sports: Play, Games, and Community in the City of Angels, edited by Wayne Wilson and David K. Wiggins, 149–65. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2018.
Liberti, Rita. “‘We Were Ladies, We Just Played Like Boys’: African American Womanhood and Competitive Basketball at Bennett College, 1928–1942.” In Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America, edited by Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins, 101–118. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Linden, Andrew D. “History of Sport and Physical Activity.” In Foundations of Kinesiology, edited by Carole A. Oglesby, Kim Henige, Douglas W. McLaughlin, and Belinda Stillwell. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2021.
Linden, Andrew D. “Revolution on the American Gridiron: Gender, Contested Space, and Women’s Football in the 1970s.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 18 (2015): 2171–2189.
Mellis, Johanna. "Cold War Politics and the California Running Scene: The Experiences of Mihály Iglói and László Tábori in the Golden State." Journal of Sport History 46, no. 1 (2019): 62–81.
Miller, Patrick B., and David K. Wiggins, eds. Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Moore, Louis. I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880–1915. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017.
Murray Phillip, G. “Chapter 30: Deaf and Disability Sport,” by Danielle Peers. In Routledge Handbook of Sport History, edited by G. Murray Phillip, Douglas Booth, and Carly Adams. New York: Routledge, 2021.
Paul, Joan. “Centuries of Change: Movement’s Many Faces.” Quest 48, no. 4 (1996): 531–545.
Paxson, Frederick Logan. “The Rise of Sport.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4, no. 2 (1917): 143–168.
Pieper, Lindsay Parks. Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sports. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016.
Purkiss, Ava. Fit Citizens: A History of Black Women’s Exercise from Post-Reconstruction to Postwar America. Gender and American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
Riess, Steven A. Major Problems in American Sport History. 2nd ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015.
Schultz, Jaime, and Andrew D. Linden. “From Ladies’ Days to Women’s Initiatives: American Pastimes and Distaff Consumption.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 31, no. 1–2 (2014): 156–180.
Schultz, Jaime. Women’s Sports: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Schultz, Jaime. “Racialized Osteology and Athletic Aptitude, or ‘Black’ Bones as Red Herrings.” Journal of Sport History 46, no. 3 (2019): 325–346.
Sherman, Erik. Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2023.
Sturtevant, Paul B. “History Is Not a Useless Major: Fighting Myths with Data.” Perspectives on History, April 1, 2017.
Taylor, Karen, Andrew D. Linden, and Dunja Antunovic. “‘From Beach Nymph to Gridiron Amazon’: Media Coverage of Women in American Football, 1934–1979.” Communication & Sport (2019), OnlineFirst.
Turner, Thomas. "German Sports Shoes, Basketball, and Hip Hop: The Consumption and Cultural Significance of the adidas 'Superstar', 1966–1988." Sport in History 35, no. 1 (2015): 127–155.
Thomas, Damion L. Globetrotting: African American Athletes and Cold War Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.
Vertinsky, Patricia A. “Exercise, Physical Capability, and the Eternally Wounded Woman in Late Nineteenth Century North America.” Journal of Sport History 14 (1987): 7–27.
Way, Peter. “Evil Humors and Ardent Spirits: The Rough Culture of Canal Construction Laborers.” The Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (March 1993): 1397–1428.
Wiggins, David K., and Brenda P. Wiggins. “Striving to Be in the Profession and of It: The African American Experience in Physical Education and Kinesiology.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 82, no. 2 (2011): 320–333.
Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.” New Left Review I, no. 82 (1973): 3–16.
Wiltse, Jeff. Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America. Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Zang, David W. SportsWars: Athletes in the Age of Aquarius. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2001.
