Articles
Below are resources that provide a general history and overview of several sports simultaneously.
Professional Team Sports in the United States - article by Steven A. Riess
- An article published by Oxford Encyclopedia. It covers the history of the 5 major sports in America: football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer. This is one of the few resources on this guide that includes hockey, so patrons with a particular interest in that sport would enjoy this resource. This resource also links several websites that offer more history, as well as recommendations for additional reading.
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This article, titled “Sports in America” was published by the United States embassy in Germany. It was linked from a general page titled “About the USA.” It gives several snippets of sports history although it doesn’t go as in-depth as other sources in the guide. From this page you can click on articles about four major sports in America: basketball, baseball, football, and soccer. There is also a dedicated article talking about women in sports.
Visual History of Sports - YouTube clip
- This is a short video clip created by the well-known web platform The Athletic, published on YouTube. It is a strictly visual, no speaking video that shares the earliest ancient recordings of well-known individual sports such as swimming, racing, and bowling. The video starts all the way back in 70,000 BCE and ends as recently as 2011. Users should know that this video does include a large amount of sports that originated in early, ancient civilizations outside of America.
Sports in America from colonial times to the 21st century
- This encyclopedia provides a deep history on major beginning sports and competitions in colonial times, such as hunting in the 16th century up into modern times. Attention is paid to even minor sports such as racing and archery. It is a compilation of nearly 400 articles and photographs that greatly deepen your knowledge of sports history. Patrons may also enjoy the bibliographical entries on important athletes and pioneers of these various sports. The link provided will bring you to a reference entry in Reference and User Services Quarterly.
On the Origins of Sports -
The following is a compilation book that discusses the rules of 21 popular sports around the world. These include unique sports such as wrestling and boxing. Patrons can check their local library to see if a copy is available, or they are able to buy the book online.
A Brief History of Women In Sports
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An article published by Concordia University, Saint Paul. It focuses on highlgiting the rise and success and women in sports. It takes a hard look at equality, lacking both in the origins of female sports and even still to this day. A reference page is included for any patrons who wish to read further and uncover additional information.