This dissertation examines how amateur sports once dominated and controlled by Pennsylvanias Leisure Class became accessible to non-elites over the course of the twentieth century. Rising standards of living and increased leisure time were pre-requisites for broader public participation. But this study argues that the democratization of amateur sport depended on the active intervention of the state and, to a lesser extent, the market, both of which broadened access to privately controlled playing fields. In hunting, state game management restored wild game populations, thus ensuring a bountiful supply of game for all Pennsylvanians, irrespective of social class. Likewise, the first municipally owned golf courses, often situated in public parks, offered the only alternative to the private courses which up to that point dominated the game and regulated participation. Finally, the market-driven demand for new sources of football material on college campuses opened opportunities for working-class student athletes, most of whom were recruited and subsidized by wealthy alumni.
Many of these changes were set in motion by elites acting in their own self interest. Over time, though, the democratization of amateur sports became a goal in itself. During the 1910s, the state game commission shifted its emphasis from game propagation and game law enforcement to the acquisition of public game lands, a policy focus which benefited hunters without access to private property. In golf, a second wave of municipal courses, many billed as peoples country clubs and fortified by federal money, were designed to be accessible to the greatest number of people, and without the membership restrictions which obtained at many early public courses.
While the social composition of amateur sports continued to expand after World War II, the market played an increasingly more visible role in that process, as evinced by growth of semi-public golf courses and the increased prevalence of leased or privately owned hunting grounds. Elites frequently responded to the crowding of the playing fields by retreating or refortifying boundaries within these same sports.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12042006-164647 |
| Date | 30 January 2007 |
| Creators | Miner, W. Curtis |
| Contributors | Dr. Laurence Glasco, Dr. Kathleen Blee, Dr. Van Beck Hall, Dr. Edward K. Muller |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12042006-164647/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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