We Learn by Doing, Leading, and Competing: Women in Athletics and

Physical Education 1890- 1960

Women's history in athletic competition

Women’s history in athletic competitions in the U.S. ranged from bicycle racing in the 1870’s to play days and sports days, intramural competitions, and to Olympic Games in 1960. Throughout this history, women’s competitions have been guided by rules written mostly by men while Physical Education activities were guided mostly by women. Women athletes have advocated for themselves, pushed back against unfair practices and fought for their rights to compete in every venue.

Philip Wrigley, the baseball gum magnate owner of the Chicago Cubs, formed the non-profit All American Girls Softball League in 1943. The league's name changed to the All American Girls Professional Baseball League midway through its first season. Originally, 4 teams competed and the league ran successfully until well after the war was over. The league peaked in 1948 with 10 teams and strong attendance.

Femininity was emphasized from the first tryout for the All-American alongside hitting, fielding, and throwing. In the year’s first season, players were expected to attend charm school, where they learned posture and manners, after their games and practices. There was a long list of behaviors in the players’ contracts including adhering to chaperone’s rules, no drinking or smoking in public, and being dressed appropriately in skirts, blouses or dresses in public. It’s no surprise that the strictures Wrigley put on the players were similar to those imposed by the physical education training programs. In fact, Mary Pratt, when first learning of the behavior mandates and charm school trainings, said that it was “quite similar” to what she experienced as a Sargent girl at Boston University where she trained to become a physical education teacher before she played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

How would you feel playing the AAGPBL uniforms?

See our gallery page for samples of our uniform collections.

Kittie Knox, an African American seamstress from Boston was the first female bicycle racer to wear bloomers and to become a member of the “league of American Wheelman” bicycle organization. https://cambridgeblackhistoryproject.org/project/kittie-knox/Kittie Knox

Mamie Peanut Johnson been quoted “I am an old Negro League baseball player. I was good enough to play.” In the Baltimore Sun “People say Toni and Connie and I were gimmicks. Well, we weren’t gimmicks; we were good enough to be there.” Thomson “Making Pitch for Women”