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Edith Houghton and the Rise and Fall of Women's ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: QUEEN OF DIAMONDS: EDITH HOUGHTON AND THE RISE AND FALL OF WOMEN’S BASEBALL Richard L. Green, Master of Arts in History, 2016 Thesis Directed By: Professor Saverio Giovacchini In the 1920s, women’s semi-professional baseball teams known as Bloomer Girls were a popular form of entertainment throughout the United States. One of the best female players of this era was Edith Houghton. Houghton had a successful baseball career and even travelled to Japan in 1925 to play on a women’s baseball team known as the Philadelphia Bobbies. By the 1930s, however, women were largely expected to play softball. Despite a brief revival of women’s baseball during the 1940s, the idea that women play softball and men play baseball has largely persisted. An analysis of Houghton’s career reveals the sociological factors that allowed women to play baseball in the 1920s and forced women into softball during the 1930s. The presence and rejection of female baseball players parallels broader changes in American gender relations, and illustrates the socially constructed nature of sport. QUEEN OF DIAMONDS: EDITH HOUGHTON AND THE RISE AND FALL OF WOMEN’S BASEBALL by Richard L. Green Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in History 2016 Advisory Committee: Professor Saverio Giovacchini, Chair Professor Robyn L. Muncy Professor Colleen Woods ©Copyright by Richard L. Green 2016 For Grammie and Bubs Who taught me to swing for the fences ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There is not enough space to thank everyone who made this work possible, nor enough words to express my gratitude. First and foremost, I must thank my advisor, Dr. Saverio Giovacchini, whose knowledge, approachability, and demand for greatness not only made this a successful paper but an enjoyable process. I am equally grateful for the other two members of my committee, Dr. Robyn Muncy and Dr. Colleen Woods, who provided invaluable feedback and made time in their busy schedules for wonderful discussions and an outstanding defense. Archivists and librarians at the New York Public Library, Temple University, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame patiently answered all of my questions and helped me uncover amazing records that made this research possible. Barbara Gregorich shared her interviews with Edith Houghton, and members of the Society for American Baseball Research welcomed me with open arms. My soon-to-be-wife, Alyssa, had to bear the burden of my frustration and anxiety. She spent many nights patiently watching me type away in my “office” and gave me helpful critiques along the way. As I write this, I conclude one chapter of my life, just as I begin another with her. I can’t wait for our story to continue. It seems futile to try to express my thanks for my parents in only a sentence because they deserve a whole book. They have showered me with love, encouragement, and given me every opportunity to succeed. I could not be here without them. Lastly, I must thank my grandmothers. Grammie fueled my passion for education and Bubs fueled my passion for life itself. Both of them have made me the person I am today, and for that, this work is dedicated to them. iii CONTENTS Introduction – Uncovering a Legend .............................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 – Bobbed Hair and Ballgames: Women’s Baseball in the Twenties ........ 20 Edith Houghton and Women’s Baseball ....................................................................... 23 Local Baseball Thrives ................................................................................................. 30 Consumer Culture: The Rise of the Sportswoman ....................................................... 35 New Women on the Baseball Diamond ........................................................................ 41 The Golden Age of Women’s Baseball ........................................................................ 51 Chapter 2 – The Bobbies in Japan: Peaks and Limitations of the New Woman ...... 53 A Unique Opportunity: Capitalizing on Baseball in Japan ........................................... 57 Baseball Diplomacy ...................................................................................................... 64 Dancing to Japan: Embracing Modernity ..................................................................... 71 Imminent Failure: Limitations of the New Woman ...................................................... 75 The Perpetuation of Failure .......................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 – Gendering of Sports in the Depression Years ......................................... 84 Changing Views Towards Women ............................................................................... 87 Popularity of Softball .................................................................................................... 95 Professionalization: Baseball for Men, Softball for Women ...................................... 102 The Persistence of Softball as a Women’s Sport ........................................................ 111 Chapter 4 – A Brief Resurgence: Roise at Bat ........................................................... 114 The All-American Girls Baseball League................................................................... 117 A WAVE Plays Ball ................................................................................................... 122 The Last Strike ............................................................................................................ 128 Conclusion – The Lasting Legacy of Women’s Baseball ........................................... 131 Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 136 iv INTRODUCTION Uncovering a Legend During my last semester as an undergraduate, I enrolled in a fiction-writing workshop. For one of the assignments, our professor handed out newspaper articles, which we were to use as inspiration for a short story. Students in our class wrote about aliens, romantic encounters, and murder mysteries. I wrote about a young girl who played baseball. My story was set in the 1920s and featured a feminine protagonist named Edith Houghton. Edith began playing ball when she was six years old and joined a team of professional women baseball players at age ten. The team travelled around the country, and I chronicled the girls’ adventures on the road. The female players reveled in their freedom to leave their parents’ watchful eye as they danced, drank alcohol, gambled, and flirted with boys. Edith and her teammates made a living playing baseball, winning games against men, and making headlines in local papers. The story took a dramatic turn when the players traveled to Japan and all their mischief put their lives in jeopardy. The young women were stranded in Asia and one girl was washed overboard on the way home. A melancholy mood prevailed as the girls returned home, only to find that women no longer played baseball. Some of the girls, including Edith, reluctantly joined softball teams, but yearned for the day they could play baseball again. Edith got her chance when WWII broke out. Edith joined the WAVES and shocked sailors as she batted .800 on a men’s baseball team in the Navy. After the war, with her best playing days behind her, Edith marched into the office of Philadelphia Phillies’ president Bob Carpenter and 1 demanded a job. Two weeks later, she became the first, and last, female scout in Major League Baseball. Edith never married; her love was for baseball. I received enormously positive feedback on the story. My teacher was impressed by my ability to create a realistic character, and my classmates applauded my creativity. Yet unbeknownst to them, my work did not belong in a fiction-writing workshop. Although seemingly unbelievable, my story was true. The inspiration for my story was the obituary of the real-life Edith Houghton. Much like my story, Houghton began playing baseball at age six and joined a semi-professional women’s baseball team at age ten. Everything from the trip to Japan to becoming a major league scout actually happened. My story was no more fictional than any history textbook. As I began more in-depth research into Houghton’s life, I realized her story was much larger than that of one woman. Houghton’s life reveals a story about the evolution of a sport and understanding that evolution reveals much about American culture. Edith was not the only woman playing competitive baseball and certainly not the only girl to pick up a bat and glove. By all accounts, women’s baseball was a popular form of entertainment in the 1920s, so much so that a team of young girls travelled all the way to Japan in 1925. By the mid-1930s, however, it was no longer acceptable for women to play baseball. Women were relegated to softball fields, and the existence of women’s hardball faded from most people’s memory. I intended to find out why. The transition from women’s hardball to softball is one of the most significant and definitive revolutions in sports. In the early decades of the 20th century, baseball was not exclusively for men. Female teams, known as Bloomer Girls, popped up in every 2 major city around the country and were successful by any measurable statistic; the women boasted winning records against male opponents, attracted
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