Of black women athletes in the age of jim crow. Thanks for joining us on American History. Thanks for having me. Let me begin with your book expected to be published in about a year. What have you learned so far . Oh, so many things. I started the project asking is there a long history of black women in sports and i found more than i expected to find quite frankly. There wasnt any archive labelled this is a history of black women in sports. So i kind of had to piece it together. I got started by finding three women who played baseball in the negro leagues in the 1950s. And it was a remarkable story. They played with the men. And one of the things that stuck out to me about that story was that the owner who had brought in the black women to play against the men said he had something called a gal file. Where women across the country and young girls too were writing in to request tryouts and that struck in my head as a young graduate student and i thought, hm, if there is a lot of black g
Association meeting. Amira rose davis is a professed or professor of history at Penn State College in pennsylvania and is working on a book about the lives and labors of women athletes in the age of jim crow. Thanks for joining us on American History tv. Thanks for having me. Let me begin with your book, expected to be published in about a year. What have you learned so far . So many things. I started the project asking, is there a long history of black women in sports . I found more than i expected to find. There wasnt any archive labeled history of black women in sports. By the time i pieced it together, i would say i got started by finding three women who played baseball in the negro leagues in the 1950s. It was a remarkable story. They played with the man. One things that stuck out about that story was that the owner who had brought in these black women to play against the men said he had something called the gal file, where women and young girls were writing in to request tryouts.
Women in sports including women who played baseball in the negro leaks in the 1950s and women who participated in olympic sports. This interview was recorded at the historical meeting. Let me begin with yearbook expected to be published in about a year. What have you learned so far . So many things. I started the project asking, is there a long history of black women in sports . I found more than i expected to find. It was not any archive labeled this is a history of black women in sports. I would say i got started by finding three women who actually played baseball in the negro s. Gues in 1950 when the one of the things that stuck out to me as the owner who brought in these women to play against the men as he had something called the gal file. That kind of stuck in my head as a young graduate student. If there is a lie of black women in the mid century trying to book time to play baseball, then that set me out on a number of other stories i have from track to tennis and really looking
I started the project asking, is there a long history of black women in sports . I found more than i expected to find quite frankly. There wasnt any archive labeled , this is the history of black sports. So i had to piece it together. I got started by finding three women who actually played baseball in the negro leagues in the 1950s. It was a remarkable story. They played with the men. One of the things that stuck out to me about that story was that the owner who had brought in these black women to play with the man said he had a file where women across the country were writing in to request tryouts. That stuck in my head as a young graduate student and i thought, is there a lot of black girls history trying to play baseball, maybe theres is a Hidden History here. So that made me go out to find other stories in the book, from track, to tennis, from baltimore to rome, really looking at black women in sporting history in the 20th century. Let me talk about two names, oe is quite familiar
I thought, hmm, if theres a lot of black girls and women in the mid century trying to play baseball maybe theres a longer history here. Thats what set me out to find some of the stories in the book that take us from track, to tennis, from baltimore to rome, and looking at black women and sporting history in the 20th century. Two names, one quite familiar, hank arron and stony stone . Yeah. Again, like i said, those baseball women who i stumbled upon, they were brought in at the kind of fall of the negro leagues. The negro leagues had been a huge institution in the black community. It provided ownership and upward mobility for Business Owners and opportunity to play for black men at the time. Always pushing for integration of the majors. Jackie robinson broke formally the color line. What we see after that is an exodus of the top tier talent. Theyre going into the majors with no compentation back into their teams. The negro leagues are in steady decline. People are looking around trying