American work-sports : a history of competitions for cornhuskers, lumberjacks, firemen and others / Frank Zarnowski ; foreword by Bil Gilbert.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zarnowski, Frank.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agricultural laborers--Competitions--United States.

Agricultural laborers.

Blue collar workers--Competitions--United States.

Blue collar workers.

Contests--United States--History.

Contests.

Employees--Competitions--United States.

Employees.

Sports--United States--History.

Sports.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (239 p.)

Place of Publication:

Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For more than a century the American farm, factory and frontier provided opportunities for physical workers to display their skill, win a bet, brag or perhaps just have some fun. Competitions that emphasized useful skills, like plowing, corn-husking, rock drilling, typesetting, and tree cutting, were common in the antebellum and post-Civil War periods, often drawing large crowds and the attention of sporting journals. For many years conventional American sports occurred in the workplace. This may help explain why the nicknames of so many prominent collegiate or professional sporting teams--Cor

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Table of Contents""; ""Foreword by Bil Gilbert""; ""Preface""; ""Introduction. The Emergence of American Work-Sports""; ""Part Two: Worker Competitions in the 19th Century, 1840�1900""; ""1. Rock Breaking and Other Early Work-Sports""; ""2. ""Put Out That Fire""� The Firemen's Musters""; ""3. Worker Games for Slaves""; ""4. Setting Type, the Story of the Swifts""; ""5. Circus Leapers""; ""6. Ten Miles of Track in a Day""; ""Part Two: Worker Competitions in the 20th Century, 1900�1940""; ""7. Rodeo""; ""8. Lumberjacks""; ""9. Rock Drilling and Steel Drivin' Men""

""10. Offi ce Games""""11. Corn Husking and Other Agricultural Contests""; ""Part Three: What Happened to Worker Competitions, 1940 to the Present""; ""12. Obsolete Work-Sports""; ""13. Modern Work-Sports""; ""14. Work-Sports in Popular Culture""; ""15. Why Work-Sports?""; ""Appendices""; ""1�U.S. Workers in Common Work-Sports Occupations, 1900""; ""2�Sample Muster News Account""; ""3�Numbers of U.S. Work- Sports Athletes, 2010""; ""4�U.S. Occupational Sports, 2010""; ""5�Wall Street Journal Front Page Work-Sports Stories, 1995�2005""; ""Chapter Notes""; ""Bibliography""

""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-7864-9126-4

OCLC:

859536858