This month, we commemorate the arrival of Spring by highlighting the addition of several turn of the century baseball journals into the Smithsonian History, Art, and Culture (SHAC) digital collection. According to SILRA’s leading information specialist, Mike Hardy,
These books cover an early period of organized baseball in the Unites States. Continue reading
Well, no not that type of boxing, exactly … but hey, it's a great image.
Boxing Day has turned into yet another shopping opportunity these days, although its origins were once more charitable in nature:
… The tradition has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions … metal boxes placed outside churches were used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen … it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth-century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts on the day after Christmas in return for good and reliable service throughout the year … in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food) … around the 1800s, churches opened their alms boxes (boxes where people place monetary donations) and distributed the contents to the poor.—Wikpedia
Hopefully as everyone recovers from yesterday's glut of food and presents some real boxing matches will not develop.
Happy Boxing Day!
—Elizabeth Periale
Image: Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Guide to the Gardens: Zoo Belle Vue, 1944. Belle Vue Zoo was one of many to hold sporting and social events on its grounds. From the online collection, Zoos: A Historical Perspective.
Joseph W. Wayne, Cincinnati, OH. Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates, circa 1879, Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates.
To celebrate National Roller Skating Week, we are featuring trade literature advertising Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates.
Patented on January 6, 1863 and June 26, 1866, Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates were advertised as "the only one upon which all the graceful movements and evolutions of Ice Skating can be executed with ease and precision on a Smooth Floor."
Because Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates provided the rink customer with exercise that was "so exhilarating … amusement so fascinating … " rink owners could also be pleased with their investment in the skates. Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates were priced at $4 per pair when bought in groups of 25 pairs or more, and according to this trade literature, by charging a price for the rental of the skates at the rink, the cost of buying the skates "will generally be returned within the first month."
Rink owners were more than satisfied with the use of Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates. A letter dated November 6, 1870 written by J. S. Elliot & Co. in Hopkinsville, Kentucky reads, "Our Rink is a complete success. Has succeeded beyond our expectations." On January 23, 1869, the Indianapolis Rink Association President, E. S. Alvord, writes, "We will state that at this place it has proved a success and a good pecuniary investment." He goes on to say, "The patrons of the Rink very generally prefer the Rollers to Ice Skating, and we have no doubt it will pay the stockholders a larger dividend, and give greater satisfaction to its patrons."
Plimpton's Patent Roller Skates, trade literature by Joseph W. Wayne of Cincinnati, Ohio, is located in the Trade Literature Collection at the National Museum of American History Library. For more images of trade literature in the Libraries' collection, check out the Galaxy of Images. —Alexia MacClain
Clare Briggs, Golf: the book of a thousand chuckles: the famous golf cartoons, c.1916, "Adventures of a Lost Ball."
September 21 is Miniature Golf Day. The illustration at left follows the adventures of a lost golf ball, probably on a turf course, but is still definitely in the spirit of the fun game, I mean sport, we call miniature golf or mini-golf.
Minigolf, or miniature golf, often called crazy golf in the United Kingdom, is a miniature version of the sport of golf. While the international sports organization World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF) prefers to use the name "minigolf", the general public in different countries has also many other names for the game: miniature golf, mini-golf, midget golf, goofy golf, shorties, extreme golf, crazy golf, adventure golf, mini-putt and so on.—Wikipedia
The Libraries also has, across its collections, some interesting books on this world wide, not just American, pastime:
Planet Golf : putt to learn, June 5 – September 12, 1999. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Pa. : Academy of Natural Sciences, c1999. Museum Studies Reference Library.
Putt-modernism: 18 hole miniature golf course & exhibition: August 1-September 27, 1992, Artists Space, sponsored by Philip Morris Companies Inc.; [essay by Ken Buhler]. Artists Space (Gallery). New York : Artists Space, 1992. Hirshhorn.
John Margolies's miniature golf, with color photographs by John Margolies and text by Nina Garfinkel and Maria Reidelbach. New York: Abbeville Press, c1987. Cooper-Hewitt Museum, National Museum of American History.
Golf-o-rama: the wacky nine hole pop-up mini-golf book, illustrated by Bill Mayer; [designed by Jim Deesing; paper engineering by Dennis K. Meyer and José Seminario]. New York : Hyperion Books for Children, c1994. CHM Bradley Room.
See you on the putt-putt course!
—Elizabeth Periale