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Quite rare & early account of a baseball game with women players...
Quite rare & early account of a baseball game with women players...
Item # 683490
August 16, 1868
NEW YORK HERALD, Aug. 16, 1868
* Rare & Early Women's baseball
* Bloomer Girls - baseball pioneers
* Elizabeth Cady Stanton reporting
Page 3 under the heading: "The National Game" has a few accounts of "Base Ball Notes" one of which is the earliest newspaper report we have seen of a baseball game with women players.
The report notes: "Mrs. Cady Stanton writes: 'At Petersboro there is a base ball club of girls. Nannie Miller, a grand-daughter of Gerrit Smith, is the captain, and handles the bat with a grace and strength worthy of notice. It was a pretty sight to see the girls with their white dresses and blue ribbons flying, in full possession of the public square last Saturday afternoon, while the boys were quiet spectators of the scene.' Ball playing is as good a method for developing the girls as it is for the boys."
This report is referenced in an article: "Bloomer Girls: Women Baseball Pioneers". Note that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the more famous early suffragists, and Garret Smith was one of the leaders of the John Brown invasion at Harper's Ferry.
The above mentioned website includes part of the above text & includes Petersboro as the town where the game was played.
Yet another site includes a timeline of important events & milestones in women's baseball. The earliest entry mentions the first women's baseball game for which fans were charged & women players were paid: September 11, 1875.
Another site notes that: "...In 1866 Vassar College organized the first two women's baseball teams. Over the next few years other colleges followed suit...women's baseball was mostly gone by the mid-1870's. It faced a backlash not only from the press & the general public but also from the girls' mothers....".
Complete in 8 pages, irregular at the blank spine with minor loss not affecting any text, a light damp stain to the top quadrant, generally in nice condition.
Category: Post-Civil War
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