At the turn of the century, Track and Field was the bastion of the rich and privileged. While baseball and prize-fighting attracted the top sportsmen from the lower orders of society, athletic clubs generally filled themselves with the America's top sporting graduates from private colleges and the sons of the rich. Except one!
The Irish-American Athletic Club was a New York organization that bucked the trend. Founded by immigrants and their sons, it was populated by immigrants, the sons of immigrants, and not necessarily the sons of Irish immigrants. Jews, African-Americans, Scandinavians, Italians, even a handful of Englishmen joined the club. It would dominate New York and American athletics for over a decade, forcing the renowned New York Athletic Club into perennial second place. It would lay claim to the title of best athletic club in the world following the 1908 Olympic Games. It would break the "color-line". It would bend the rules on amateurism. It would challenge the ban on Sunday entertainments and succumb to the fallout from the First World War, Prohibition and a growing city swallowing up real estate for urban housing, yet endow us some of the greatest myths and legends in American athletics.
This is its story.
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Maße
Höhe: 229 mm
Breite: 152 mm
Dicke: 18 mm
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ISBN-13
978-1-4766-7239-7 (9781476672397)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Patrick R. Redmond has written for the London newspapers Irish World and Irish Post. He lives just outside of London, United Kingdom.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
¿1.¿The "staid" and the "poor man's" Athletic Clubs
¿2.¿"For the encouragement of manly sports and exercises ... of the Irish-American Athlete": The First and
Second I-AAC
¿3.¿"The 'Mecca' of attraction for every proud son and fair
daughter of Erin": The Building of Celtic Park
¿4.¿"Our name is the Irish-American Athletic Club":
The I-AAC and Other Ethnicities
¿5.¿"An overwhelming success numerically and financially":
Establishing the GNYIAA Between 1898 and 1904
¿6.¿"A roistering carefree set of hellions": The Irish Immigrant
Athlete and the I-AAC
¿7.¿"The banner organization of the United States": St. Louis
and Onwards, 1904-1906
¿8.¿"The social element in Clubs is like 'dry rot'": Snobbery
and the American Athletic Club
¿9.¿"The first, if not the foremost, athletic club in the world":
The I-AAC Between 1906 and 1908
10.¿"If you see an Irish head, hit it": The I-AAC and
Accusations of Professionalism
11.¿"You carry the Stars and Stripes proudly!" The I-AAC
Athletes at the 1908 Olympics
12.¿"Blood stirred by its games and sports": The I-AAC
and Promoting Irish Sport and Identity in America
13.¿"Condemned for wholesale proselyting": The I-AAC
Growth Between 1908 and 1912
14.¿"Such shameful spectacles would never be permitted
pious New York": The I-AAC: Policemen, Politicians and Sabbatarians
15.¿"In spite of depressing conditions": The Beginning
the End of the I-AAC (1912-1916)
16.¿"Service first, athletics afterward": The I-AAC
Finally Closes
17.¿"Perhaps we shall again see the day"
Glossary of Athletic Events
Appendix: Irish-American Athletic Club Team Honors
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
