1st Edition

The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States Cathedrals of Sport

Edited By Mark Dyreson, Robert Trumpbour Copyright 2010
196 Pages
by Routledge

196 Pages
by Routledge

200 Pages
by Routledge

Many Americans know more about the stadiums that loom over their cityscapes or college campuses than they do about any other aspect of the nation’s geography. Stadiums serve as iconic monuments of urban and university identities. Indeed, the power of sport in modern American culture has produced ‘sportscapes’—landscapes literally shaped by their devotion to athletic competition. Curiously, given... Read more

1. Prologue – Cathedrals of Sport: Mapping New Territories  Mark Dyreson  2. Setting the Scene – Bridging the Gap between Knowledge and Practice: When Americans Really Built Programmes to Foster Healthy Lifestyles, 1918–1940  Roberta J. Park  3. Far More Than Commercialism: Stadium Building from Harvard’s Innovations to Stanford’s ‘Dirt Bowl’  Ronald A. Smith  4. If We Build It Will They Come? The Plans for a National Stadium and American Olympic Desires  Mark Dyreson  5. ‘Ivy-Coloured Glasses’: The Myth of Wrigley Field Gregg Twietmeyer  6. Stadiums, Boosters, Politicians and Major League Baseball’s Reluctance to Expand: An Exploration of Post-Second World War US Trends Michael Lomax  7. From ‘The Finest Ballpark in America’ to ‘The Jewel of the Waterfront’: The Construction of San Francisco’s Major League Baseball Stadiums Maureen M. Smith  8. If They Built It? Stadium Dreams and Rustbelt Realities in Cleveland  Philip Suchma  9. Civil Rights and Sports Landmarks: Discrimination, Jobs and Activism in the Construction of Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium  Robert Trumpbour 10. Epilogue – Cathedrals of Sport: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future  Robert Trumpbour

Biography

Mark Dyreson is an associate professor of kinesiology and an affiliate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. He has published more than fifty journal articles and book chapters and several books including Making the American Team: Sport, Culture and the Olympic Experience (University of Illinois Press, 1998), Crafting Patriotism for Global Dominance: America at the Olympics (Routledge, 2008), and, with J.A. Mangan, Sport and American Society: Insularity, Exceptionalism and 'Imperialism' (Routledge, 2007).

Robert Trumpbour is assistant professor of communications at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College. He is the author of The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction (Syracuse University Press, 2007). He has written in and has been invited to speak at a variety of venues, including an invitation to Harvard Law School, on the politics of ballpark construction. Trumpbour is active in several organizations, including AEJMC, MAPACA, NASSH, and SABR.