Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2018 Collegiate Symbols and Mascots of the American Landscape: Identity, Iconography, and Marketing Gary Gennar DeSantis Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES COLLEGIATE SYMBOLS AND MASCOTS OF THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE: IDENTITY, ICONOGRAPHY, AND MARKETING By GARY GENNAR DeSANTIS A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 ©2018 Gary Gennar DeSantis Gary Gennar DeSantis defended this dissertation on November 2, 2018. The members of the committee were: Andrew Frank Professor Directing Dissertation Robert Crew University Representative Jonathan Grant Committee Member Jennifer Koslow Committee Member Edward Gray Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my beloved father, Gennar DeSantis, an avid fan of American history, who instilled in me the same admiration and fascination of the subject. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v 1. FITNESS, BACK-TO-NATURE, AND COLLEGE MASCOTS ..............................................1 2. NITTANY LION: SYMBOL AND MYTH ............................................................................26 3. BEAVER: PRESERVATION OF A WETLANDS ENGINEER ............................................61 4. MOUNTAINEER: SYMBOL OF UNITY IN WEST VIRGINIA ..........................................99 5. AMERICAN BALD EAGLE: SYMBOL OF A NATION ...................................................129 6. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................160 References ....................................................................................................................................166 Biographical Sketch .....................................................................................................................216 iv ABSTRACT The rise of college symbols and mascots related to the American landscape directly correlates with the rapid changes stemming from industrialization and urbanization in the late- nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century. The loss of national identity attributed to the closing of the western frontier had a devastating effect on young white males in particular. The ensuing cultural crisis brought about by the wanton extirpation of wildlife and destruction of the natural environment led directly to the preservationist movement of the turn- of-the century. In the face of unparalleled immigration, the fitness and the back-to-nature movements were believed to be instrumental in helping white American men avoid committing “race suicide.” Nurtured by the teachings and philosophies of conservationists and preservationists, young white college men formed the first football teams and adopted symbols of the American landscape as a means of team identity. Because iconography makes for a powerful tool of identity and solidarity, students and college officials were likewise intrigued. Eager to quell unruly student behavior, college administrators—who had a more than contentious relationship with the student body throughout the late-nineteenth century—gladly assented. The profits soon realized from college sports and the pageantry surrounding it proved irresistible to colleges across the land. Consequently, by the early decades of the late-nineteenth century, numerous American college athletic teams began using mascots related to the American landscape and school colors to foment group solidarity. v CHAPTER 1 FITNESS, BACK-TO-NATURE, AND COLLEGE MASCOTS Symbols and mascots employed by American colleges and universities remain essential in creating group identity. They play a significant role in instilling values, building solidarity, and reinforcing behavior. This dissertation argues that American colleges and universities from the late-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries sought to enshrine and honor potential and rapidly disappearing species and figures of the American landscape by adopting them as symbols and mascots for their sports teams. Beginning in the late-nineteenth century, new ways of thinking about wilderness protection, reinforced with generous doses of white Eurocentrism, paternalism, and gendered constructions peppered preservationist rhetoric during this era. Troubled by industrialization and new immigration, the succeeding generation, which would come to maturity and assume power at the turn-of-the-century, took lessons learned from early advocates of nature preservation, such as Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh. This peer group also derived knowledge from romanticists as well as nationalists and changed cultural attitudes regarding preservation of the American environment. Similarly, white college-aged males applied these ideas about preservation of the environment and its wildlife when they began adopting symbols representative of the American landscape as mascots for their sports teams. In order to understand the continued use of American collegiate mascots, fans’ reverence (or opposing teams’ disdain) for them, and how and why they came into existence, one must look at prominent cultural themes and concepts driving American culture at the time. The back-to- nature movement and the fitness craze, both fueled by the idea of social Darwinism and “the survival of the fittest” philosophies of the era, additionally remain paramount in this discussion. Several other popular late-nineteenth-century and turn-of-the century American phenomena 1 including: the rise of organized sports, the vogue for fraternal societies, the relationship between the student body and college administrators, the effect of print media, a longing for a retreat from modernity in the guise of a constructed nostalgia for medieval codes of conduct, and the role of popular culture also factor into the equation. Social Darwinism—the idea that American society reflects the wild environment— remained a popular concept at the time, which the nation used to justify the era’s divided society. Similarly, many different groups and individuals concerned with saving the country’s dwindling wildlife population as well as setting aside untouched lands and reclaiming exhausted tracts, sought to instill a new generation with a more ethical awareness and respect for the physical environment by inculcating a different set of beliefs and values than previous eras. Empowered by these teachings, white male stakeholders at colleges and universities across the nation looked to these themes and concepts when they began adopting animals and other characters emblematic of the American landscape at this time. They used these symbols not only to represent their colleges’ sports teams but also to foment school solidarity. Wisely aligning their institutions and teams with these common symbols associated so closely with nationhood, stakeholders sought to not only preserve the memory of vanishing species once prominent to the United States but also to exploit the imagery for profit. In order to put the history of American college mascots into better perspective this dissertation addresses several prominent areas of historiographical inquiry. First, contemporary scholars of the Progressive Era argue that white men underwent a crisis of masculinity in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century. For example, gender historian Judith A. Allen 2 observes that it is a “pervasive theme of masculinity” to situate it “as a crisis-bound formation.” 1 Cultural historian Toby Ditz proposes American culture requires and even demands “to see the masculine subject as everywhere fragile and endangered, and ever in constant crisis.” 2 This dissertation adds to this growing body of literature by showing how college-aged white males co- opted symbols of the American landscape to not only stay close to wild nature but also as markers of manliness. 3 Second, scholars of higher education too often ignore and overlook the topic of college mascots altogether. For example, the classic texts of the field devote little more than a paragraph to the topic even as they document the nascent stages of college sports pageantry. For instance, historian of American higher education John Thelin offers only that colleges adopted institutional colors and mascots during the late-nineteenth century to the early part of the twentieth century.4 Even in his groundbreaking study, detailing the history of American colleges and universities, cultural historian Frederick Rudolph merely notes American football officially began with the Princeton-Rutgers match in 1869—and nothing else.5 More recent insights on the role of socialization and sport in the Progressive Era entirely overlook 1 Judith A. Allen, “Men Interminably in Crisis? Historians on Masculinity, Sexual Boundaries, and Manhood,” Radical History Review , 82, (winter 2002): 191-207. 2 Toby Ditz, “The New Men’s History and the Peculiar Absence of Gender Power: Some Remedies from Early American Gender History,” Gender and History