Baseball As America

From the Tour: On the Road With Baseball As America

by Kristen Mueller,
Baseball As America Lead Curator

(Article originally published in Memories and Dreams — Winter 2003)

Photo: National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York

Pioneering women ballplayers overcame many obstacles to play the game they loved. As the “fair sex,” women were long considered too frail to participate in athletics. However, a movement advocating exercise as the key to a healthy body and mind began to take hold by the latter half of the 19th century, just as the popularity of baseball exploded.

A growing number of proponents for female involvement in sports included prominent women’s colleges, such as Vassar in Poughkeepsie, New York, which fielded a ball team as early as 1866. Despite these early champions of the sporting woman, there was still opposition. The 1911 Reach Guide noted, “We hold, and we know, that base ball [two words in those days] is not a game for any woman, not even the most masculine of the sex.” During this time, one of the few outlets for female participation in organized baseball was the barnstorming teams.

Between the 1890s and the 1920s, dozens of “Bloomer Girl” teams traveled across the country, often challenging men’s amateur and semi-pro teams. Named for their loose style of pants, these women’s teams were seen as an entertainment novelty that could make entrepreneurs a quick profit. Still, these teams evolved into competitive squads that played serious baseball while engaging in an on-field “battle of the sexes.” Many of the top nines and star players were covered in sporting journals and newspapers around the country, gaining notoriety and playing to sellout crowds.

The Chicago Stars Ladies’ Base Ball Club barnstormed in 1902. Originally produced as a souvenir, this photocard has a handwritten account from a young female spectator of a match played between the Stars and the local Amenia Nine in Dutchess County, New York. Though the Amenia Nine took an 8-7 victory over Chicago, the women played a competitive twelve-inning match.