Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:55:15.996Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unexceptional exceptionalism: the origins of American football in a transnational context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2013

Tony Collins
Tony Collins*
Affiliation:
International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK E-mail: tcollins@dmu.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the origins and early history of American football in relation to the development of rugby and similar codes in the English-speaking world of the last third of the nineteenth century. It suggests that the traditional narrative description of the emergence of the American game – which is ascribed in large part to the individual initiative of Walter Camp – fails to situate the sport in the context of the wider, transnational dynamics of the development of the various handling codes of football. In particular, it contends that the common assumption that the gridiron game's early development was a sporting expression of American exceptionalism is mistaken and that it only acquired its distinctive national character in the early twentieth century.

Keywords

American exceptionalismBritish worldfootballgridironrugby
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , July 2013 , pp. 209 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mandelbaum, Michael, The Meaning of Sports, New York: Public Affairs, 2004, pp. 27–28Google Scholar

2 Dyreson, Mark, ‘The paradoxes of American insularity, exceptionalism and imperialism’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 22, 6, 2005, p. 942CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Madsen, Deborah L., American exceptionalism, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998Google Scholar

Hodgson, Godfrey, The myth of American exceptionalism, Yale, CT: Yale University Press, 2009Google Scholar

Shafer, Byron E., ed., Is America different? A new look at American exceptionalism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991Google Scholar

Lipset, Seymour Martin, American exceptionalism: a double-edged sword, New York: W. W. Norton, 1998Google Scholar

Lockhart, Charles, The roots of American exceptionalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Pease, Donald E., The new American exceptionalism, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2009Google Scholar

Markovits, Andrei S. and Hellerman, Steven L., Offside: soccer and American exceptionalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 John Mack Faragher, Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner, Yale, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 31–61Google Scholar

Guttmann, Allen, From ritual to record: the nature of modern sports, New York: Columbia University Press, 1978, pp. 92–94Google Scholar

5 Riesman, David and Denney, Reuel, ‘Football in America: a study in cultural diffusion’, American Quarterly, 3, 3, 1951, pp. 309–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Ibid., pp. 314–15.

7 Oriard, Michael, Reading football, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993, p. 27Google Scholar

8 Pascoe, Rob, The winter game, 2nd edn, Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1996Google Scholar

9 William Humber, ‘Survival of the fittest: Canada recreates British football in its own image’, unpublished paper for the British Society of Sports History Conference, Liverpool, 2000, p. 4.

10 Magee, Gary B. and Thompson, Andrew S., Empire and globalisation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 New York Times, 5 June 1857.

12 New York Times, 30 August 1860.

13 New York World, 17 November 1872.

14 Matthews, William, Getting on in the world, Toronto: S. C. Griggs, 1876, p. 61Google Scholar

15 Davis, Parke H., Football: the American intercollegiate game, New York: Charles Scribner, 1911, p. 24Google Scholar

16 Gorn, Elliott, The manly art, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986, p. 188Google Scholar

17 Mangan, J. A. and Walvin, James, eds., Manliness and morality: middle-class masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987Google Scholar

18 Ingrassia, Brian, The rise of the gridiron university: higher education's uneasy alliance with big-time football, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012Google Scholar

19 Riesman and Denney, ‘Football’, pp. 309–325Google Scholar

20 Guttmann, Allen, ‘Civilized mayhem: origins and early development of American football’, Sport in Society, 9, 4, 2006, pp. 535–537CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Camp, Walter, ‘The game and laws of American football’, Outing, October 1886, pp. 69–76Google Scholar

22 Walter Camp's book of college sports, New York, 1893, pp. 88–9.

23 Camp, ‘Game and laws’, p. 69Google Scholar

24 Davis, Football, pp. 461–467Google Scholar

25 Player, A Yale, ‘The development of football’, Outing, 15, 2, 1889, p. 145Google Scholar

26 Robert Christison, captain of York Football Club interviewed in the Yorkshire Evening Post, 22 February 1901.

27 Camp, ‘Game and laws’, p. 72Google Scholar

28 Baker, William, Sports in the western world, rev. edn, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988, p. 129Google Scholar

29 Toronto Daily Globe, 23 October 1875.

30 Toronto Daily Globe, 12 November 1875.

31 Davis, Football, pp. 24Google Scholar

32 Gubi, Greg, ed., The lost century of American football, Charleston, SC: Lost Century, 2011, p. 60Google Scholar

33 Davis, Football, p. 468Google Scholar

34 Watterson, John Sayle, College football: history, spectacle, controversy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, p. 19Google Scholar

Baker, Sports, p. 129Google Scholar

35 Guillemard, A. G., ‘The rugby union game with hints to players’, in Thomas P. Power, ed., The footballer, Melbourne: Henriques & Co., 1877, p. 11Google Scholar

36 Bell's Life in London, 16 October 1875.

37 Marshall, Frank, ed., Football: the rugby union game, London: Cassell, 1892, p. 120Google Scholar

38 Davis, Football, p. 468Google Scholar

39 See for example the use of ‘scrimmage’ in the Manchester Guardian, 20 September 1906. Camp's claim is in Camp, ‘Game and laws’, p. 73.

40 Camp, Walter, ‘Methods and development in tactics and play’, Outing, 37, 2, November 1899, p. 172Google Scholar

41 Detroit Free Press, 2 November 1879; Michigan Argonaut, 14 November 1885.

42 Montreal Gazette, 2 November 1881.

43 Camp, Walter, American football, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891, p. 15Google Scholar

44 Anon, ‘Football as played at Rugby in the 'sixties’, Rugby Football, 3 November 1923Google Scholar

45 Guillemard, A. G., ‘Foundation and progress of the Rugby Football Union’, in Marshall, Football, p. 71Google Scholar

46 Robinson, B. F., Rugby football, London: Innes & Co., 1896, p. 289Google Scholar

47 Royds, Percy, The history of the laws of Rugby football, Twickenham: Rugby Football Union, 1949, p. 149Google Scholar

48 Mason, Tony, Association football and English society, 1863–1915, Brighton: Harvester, 1980, pp. 208Google Scholar

49 Montreal Gazette, 2 November 1880.

50 Montreal Gazette, 27 October 1880.

51 ‘The American game of foot-ball’, Century Magazine, October 1887, p. 890.

52 Philips, R. J., The story of Scottish rugby, Edinburgh: Foulis, 1925, p. 13Google Scholar

Marshall, Football, p. 172Google Scholar

53 For Thornes, see Yorkshire Evening Post, 21 and 28 November 1903.

54 Camp, Walter, ‘Football in America’, Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, 57, 1, November 1898, p. 61Google Scholar

55 Yorkshire Post, 9 October 1892.

56 Hodge, Richard Morse, ‘American college football’, Outing, 11, 6, March 1888, p. 487Google Scholar

57 The ‘block game’ is described in Camp, American football, p. 19.

58 Davis, Football, p. 468Google Scholar

59 Collins, Tony, Rugby league in twentieth century Britain, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, pp. 112–113Google Scholar

60 Davis, Football, pp. 51–52Google Scholar

61 Henderson, W. J., ‘College football twenty-five years ago’, Outing, 37, 1, October 1899, p. 16Google Scholar

Camp, Walter, Football facts and figures, New York: Harper & Bros, 1894, p. 163Google Scholar

62 ‘Foot-ball’, Harper's Weekly, 5 November 1881; Arthur Brisbane, ‘The rugby game of foot-ball’, Harper's Young People, 8 December 1885.

63 ‘Change the football rules: the rugby game as played now is a dangerous pastime’, New York Times, 2 December 1893.

64 Guttmann, ‘Civilized mayhem’, p. 535Google Scholar

65 Camp, Walter, American football, New York: Harper & Bros, 1891, p. 8Google Scholar

66 Davis, Football, pp. 24Google Scholar

67 New York Times, 9 April 1882.

68 Camp, Walter, ‘Rugby football in America’, Outing, 1911, pp. 707–713Google Scholar

69 Levine, Peter, A. G. Spalding and the rise of baseball, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 112–116Google Scholar

70 Oriard, Reading football, p. 37Google Scholar

Guttmann, ‘Civilized mayhem’, p. 535Google Scholar

71 Whitney, Caspar, A sporting pilgrimage, New York: Harper & Bros, 1894, p. 96Google Scholar

72 Corbin, John, An American at Oxford, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1902, p. 131Google Scholar

73 Jenkins, Rebecca, The first London Olympics: 1908, London: Piatkus, 2008Google Scholar

74 Riesman and Denney, ‘Football’, p. 318Google Scholar

Guttmann, ‘Civilized mayhem’, p. 535Google Scholar

75 Carter, Neil, The football manager, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, p. 18Google Scholar

76 Oriard, Reading football, p. 30Google Scholar

77 Union, Canadian Rugby Football, Constitution and laws of the game, Toronto: Canadian Rugby Football Union, 1884, p. 16Google Scholar

78 Davis, Football, p. 478Google Scholar

Davis, Parke H., ‘The two problems of amateur athletics’, Outing, 19, 3, December 1891, pp. 197–200Google Scholar

79 Carter, Football manager, p. 18Google Scholar

80 Camp, Walter, ‘Football’, Outing, February 1891, p. 380Google Scholar

81 Collins, Tony, Rugby's great split, London: Frank Cass, 1998, pp. 116–117Google Scholar

82 Whitney, Sporting pilgrimage, p. 164Google Scholar

83 Camp, Football facts, p. 47Google Scholar

84 Riesman and Denney, ‘Football’, p. 317Google Scholar

85 Barney, Robert K., ‘America's first turnverein’, Journal of Sport History, 11, 1, 1984, pp. 134–137Google Scholar

86 Park, Roberta, ‘From football to rugby – and back, 1906–1919: the University of California–Stanford University response to the football crisis of 1905’, Journal of Sport History, 11, 3, 1984, pp. 5–40Google Scholar

87 Davis, Football, p. 112Google Scholar

88 Nelson, Anatomy, pp. 116–120Google Scholar

89 Miller, John J., The big scrum: how Teddy Roosevelt saved football, New York: Harper Collins, 2011Google Scholar

90 Collins, Tony, ‘The invention of sporting tradition: national myths, imperial pasts and the origins of Australian Rules football’, in Stephen Wagg, ed., Myths and milestones in the history of sport, London: Palgrave, 2011, pp. 8–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar

91 Soccer's failure to become the dominant football code in the United States, often pointed to as another example of American exceptionalism in sports, was repeated in every other English-speaking country, with the exception of England and Scotland. Soccer predominantly became the game of the non-anglophone world.