History of Baseball

This course explores the history of baseball as the history of America since the game’s origins in the early nineteenth century. Students examine critical issues in baseball’s past, including war, democracy, equality, social mobility, modernity, industrial labor relations, leisure and entertainment, racial segregation, and ideas about manliness and physical prowess. Jackie Robinson’s place in the history of baseball—indeed, the history of America—is a major theme. Students also look at baseball’s exportation by sporting entrepreneurs and religious organizations. Topics and assignments in this course ask students to pay special attention to ideas and structures concerning race, ethnicity, nationality, social class, gender, and religious identity.