Essay On Sports In The 1920s

To many people in our modern world, when you think about the 1920s history in America, most would think about women’s rights or prohibition. Although these events two plus many of others to many historians, the whole idea of sports in America was an underground, booming area. Known as “The Golden Age of Sports”, this time period was a time of change and record breaking.With the role of playing a professional sport, many athletes were seen as a role model or somewhat of a God, “ A gentleman never competes for money, directly or indirectly. Make no mistake about.”No matter how winding the may be that eventually brings the sovereign into the pocket, it is the price of what should be dearer to you than anything else - your honor( Sports Overview)”.

The birth of mass culture would start rolling as the 1920s continued onward.¨During the 1920s, many Americans had extra money to spend, and they spent it on consumer goods such as ready-to-wear clothes and home appliances like electric refrigerators (“The Roaring Twenties”). The invention of the radio boomed throughout the middle class in the 1920s, which also brought the growth of broadcasting, that would connect the nation with the power of waves. Sales of radios soared from $60 million in 1922 to $426 million in 1929. The first commercial radio station began broadcasting in 1919, and during the 1920s, the nation's airwaves were filled with musical variety shows and comedies (“Digital History”). Although the idea of enjoyment flourished, Racial Segregation would affect how society in the southern states would intermingle through education and in the public. “ North Carolina enacted segregation laws that mandated the separation of citizens by race or color. One of the areas where the image of segregation was most visible in North Carolina in the 1920s was education (Wadelington). The 1920s was a period of change in numerous aspects of society that would forever change the course of the United States of

As sports were emerging in the 1920s, technology played a huge role when it came to broadcasting across the nation. “The first commercial radio station in the U.S., Pittsburgh’s KDKA, hit the airwaves in 1920; three years later there were more than 500 stations in the nation” (“The Roaring Twenties”). During this time of America’s history, the game of baseball one of the most popular sports teeming with big icon superstars. Players like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, and Tommy Hitchcock would establish records, and in the process, became legends (Sports Overview). Even though sports in the 1920s were known as the “Golden Age of Sports”, for African Americans, this time in history would bring inequality in participation of sports.”During the decade Jim Crow laws prevented most gifted black athletes from participating in the American Dream of success that was so much a part of the sports culture. Notable black athletes had appeared in the nineteenth century, particularly as jockeys, but after the turn of the century African Americans, generally speaking, were not allow the compete with whites. Since the professional baseball excluded black athletes, African Americans founded, owned, and operated the Negro National Baseball League and the Eastern Colored League, which were established before the 1920s but achieved their highest level of stability