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In a hurry? Save or print these Collection Connections as a single file.
Go directly to the collection, Baseball Cards, 1887-1914, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.
At the turn of the century, America was developing into an industrial nation with growing urban populations, arriving immigrants,
and new labor forces. During this time, baseball was growing in popularity.
Baseball Cards, 1887-1914, with its 2,100 items, provides a launching point for the study of this era of
United States history.
1) Urbanization
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Many people moved to American cities at the turn of the century for economic, social, and political opportunities.
Cities were the center of the industrial revolution, providing employment to recent immigrants, as well as those displaced
from their rural homes.
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Professional baseball teams were located in these growing urban centers. Students can browse the
list of cities represented by the
baseball cards in the collection. Students can discuss why a certain city may or may not have had a baseball team.
Are these factors the same ones that influence where baseball teams are located today?
What might it have meant to a city and its people to have had a baseball team during this period of urbanization? What roles might baseball have played in these cities and city life? What does it mean today for a city to have its own team?
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[Washington Nationals], 1913,
Fatima Team Cards.
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Students can search on baseball in Taking the Long View, 1851-1991 to find photographic images of
people playing the game.
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2) Leisure Activities & Mass Entertainment
At the turn of the century, Americans had increasing amounts of leisure time as the industrial
work day became standardized. Weekends and vacation time allowed for popular forms of entertainment. Most popular were those
that entertained many people at once. Baseball was a fun recreational activity whether you were playing with your team
or watching with other spectators. See the section Game Day in the Majors
of "Early Baseball Pictures, 1860s - 1920s"
to learn more about baseball as entertainment.
Students can find the answers to these questions:
- How many people could play baseball at once?
- How many people could watch the game?
- Did you need exceptional skills to play baseball?
- Did it matter how wealthy you were or how old you were?
- Did everyone need to be fluent in the same language? Or could players get by without much verbal communication?
- What other forms of entertainment were popular at this time?
By answering these questions, students will determine that baseball was a leisure activity that
many people could play at once or watch, well-suited to large urban populations. In addition, whatever one's skill level, age or ability to communicate,
one could play baseball.
3) Segregation & The Struggle for Equality
4) Tobacco Industry
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Baseball cards
were first created by tobacco companies, which inserted the cards into their products as an advertising gimmick. Therefore, Baseball Cards, 1887-1914 provides students an entry point to studying the history of one of America's oldest industries.
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The history of tobacco as a cultivated crop goes back to Native Americans.
When Christopher Columbus arrived in North America he found native peoples growing tobacco. Colonists in the South
established plantations to grow this agricultural product. The industry developed into a lucrative business with both
domestic and foreign sales. Today, federal, state, and local taxes on tobacco are a great source of revenue for governments.
Students can browse the collection by Card Set, and read the tobacco industry's advertisements on the back of the cards. For background to their study of this collection, students can research the history of tobacco in America. They
can look at the smoking habits of Americans at the turn of the century. And they can do a search of tobacco in THOMAS for current legislation reflecting the issues that surround the tobacco industry today.
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