This book presents essential, readable, and provocative documents and essays that illuminate the American sporting experience from a variety of viewpoints. A volume in the MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY series, it is designed to encourage critical thinking about history. The documents are primary sources, selected for how they illustrate major developments in the rise of sport, and often, for how they illuminate the accompanying essays. They include government reports, court cases, contemporary newspaper articles, diary entries, and advertisements for athletic equipment. The essays were chosen to cover broadly the field of sport history, based on the particular significance of each essay to our understanding of sport history as well as the quality of the writing, research, and analysis. Introductions and headnotes for the readings provide context to help students better understand the material.