#TBT in the Archives 3/26/15

Women's basketball team, 1910

In honor of March Madness, and the last week of Women's History Month, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss the history of women's basketball here at Ship for this installment of Throwback Thursday. The origin of basketball in the United States goes back to 1891 when James Naismith developed a game to hold the attention of a rowdy gym class at the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA. Senda Berenson is credited with introducing the sport to women, believing that there was no reason women could not play the game. Basketball quickly spread across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making its way to Shippensburg (then the Cumberland Valley State Normal School [CVSNS]) in 1903.

According to the Normal School Herald from January of that year, "the game teems with excitement and sport, and great enthusiasm has been shown by both boys and girls." A basketball section highlighting players, scores, and schedules began to regularly appear in January and April issues thereafter, the Herald proclaiming that "basketball is the game at Normal during the winter months." Although the Herald primarily concentrated on men's basketball, recaps of women's games do appear such as in the April 1903 issue when CVSNS played their first game against the Girls' Varsity at Dickinson College, losing 6-4. A week later CVSNS made up for their loss, defeating Dickinson 6-2.

The emergence of women's involvement in basketball at CVSNS and across the country reflects a larger theme about women's roles that began to shift in the late nineteenth century. The mid-nineteenth century Victorian ideals that placed women in the roles of mother and wife began to dissipate as women entered professions such as teaching and social work. Athletics became an integral part of the new model of American womanhood. At CVSNS, the Herald noted that "the girls were by no means inferior to the boys in their love of the sport." The image above is the earliest photographic record of a women's basketball team at CVSNS. The young man in the photo was the team's leader. Note that the uniforms reflect the era's ideals of modesty, as women had  to "cover up" on the court. While athletics did offer new opportunities for women, athleticism had to be balanced with the social norms of the era.

Want to learn more about Ship's history? No need to wait for the next Throwback Thursday! Visit Archives & Special Collections during our open research hours, or contact us via e-mail: specialcollections@ship.edu or phone: 717-477-1516.


Sources:
Grundy, Pamela and Susan Shackelford. Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women's Basketball. New York: The New Press, 2005. 

Normal School Herald 7, no. 2, January 1903, University Archives & Special Collections, Ezra Lehman Memorial Library, Shippensburg, PA.

Normal School Herald 7, no. 3, April 1903, University Archives & Special Collections, Ezra Lehman Memorial Library, Shippensburg, PA.