Bloomers and Beanball: Baseball, Women's Rights, and America's Liberal-Republican Tradition

• In Event: Identity and Political Behavior

Abstract

This paper outlines the emergence of two American founding-era limitations on women's rights: republican arguments concerning the centrality of the domestic realm in inculcating civic virtue and the liberal emphasis on property as the qualification for political participation. Working within this liberal-republican framework, this paper examines how women have used baseball as a means of fighting for gender equality. It examines women's participation in the national pastime from the early 1800s through to the present day, placing special emphasis on the first professional Bloomer teams of the late 1800s as well as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s. Ultimately, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the liberal-republican foundations of American society necessitated the construction of economic and political systems based on gender inequality, thereby ensuring that any measure of freedom and equality women gained through baseball was short-lived.

Author

• Mary Craig, Furman University