UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Lemcke, Stephen Biddle
Dept./Program:
History
Degree:
MA
Abstract:
The connection between sports and empire has been a fruitful topic in discovering various expressions of imperial power. Sports have also been a means for subaltern groups within colonial systems to challenge hegemonic power. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the British, filled with both the satisfaction and anxieties of ruling over a large worldwide colonial empire, used sports as means to bind that empire together. Sports, and the British ideals and virtues they were meant to convey, were powerful ideological tools designed to "educate" colonial peoples into becoming "proper Englishmen." Cricket as a worldwide sporting phenomenon is one of the chief legacies of that imperial era.
Yet other sports made their way out into the empire as well. Golf and golf clubs became another site for the expression of British imperial ethics and power. However, golf posed challenges to those ethics and notions of masculinity. Golfreflected and challenged certain cultural trends when it first saw its great growth in popularity in the last two decades of the 19th century. This thesis will establish that while the dominating ideology of team sports in the British Empire, such as cricket, still ruled in the period of 1880-1900, the individual middle-aged game of golf had become uniquely suited to provide a locus for a changing and competing masculinity.
Golfs suitability to accept the challenge posed by the physical emancipation of women in the figure of the"New Woman" was a key sign of insecurities and changes found within British society itself the changing role of women and the rise of the suburb and the emergence of a large professional, business and culturally dominant middle class. Golf courses, the actual activity of playing the game, and the subsequent "clubbability" it showcased, attached itself to an older sense of social hierarchical proprieties well suited to the needs of the British middle classes. Golf as a game, however, showcased more individualistic notions of the self, but still attached golfers to the society of peer groups through the homo-social aspects of The Club. Golf in the Empire, exhibited a similar, if smaller scale growth in popularity at this time. Golf had been played in an imperial setting for years and had exhibited the needs to exclude on the basis of gender, class and most importantly for the imperial setting, race. British elites were equally engaged with the game during The Golf Boom, but were enthralled with more "manly" options open to them in a colonial setting.
Golf may have been a "lesser game" but its growth in popularity during the years of 1880-1900 at home and abroad not only provided a locus for the reflection of new social stratification in England but also a cultural form where traditional notions of masculinity and gender were both consolidated and challenged. Out in the empire, the exclusionary trend found in golfand golfclubs, as an expression ofexclusion away from the work and colonized of empire, continued on a trajectory at line with the current trends of both home and paradoxically at odds with those in colonial society. It would be some time before the contemporary world and nationalist movements would manage to break down the walls of power established by the exclusivity of the colonial golf club, caught as it was in the trappings of its high imperial era context. This thesis may even help explain why I play and love such a "stupid" game.
Yet other sports made their way out into the empire as well. Golf and golf clubs became another site for the expression of British imperial ethics and power. However, golf posed challenges to those ethics and notions of masculinity. Golfreflected and challenged certain cultural trends when it first saw its great growth in popularity in the last two decades of the 19th century. This thesis will establish that while the dominating ideology of team sports in the British Empire, such as cricket, still ruled in the period of 1880-1900, the individual middle-aged game of golf had become uniquely suited to provide a locus for a changing and competing masculinity.
Golfs suitability to accept the challenge posed by the physical emancipation of women in the figure of the"New Woman" was a key sign of insecurities and changes found within British society itself the changing role of women and the rise of the suburb and the emergence of a large professional, business and culturally dominant middle class. Golf courses, the actual activity of playing the game, and the subsequent "clubbability" it showcased, attached itself to an older sense of social hierarchical proprieties well suited to the needs of the British middle classes. Golf as a game, however, showcased more individualistic notions of the self, but still attached golfers to the society of peer groups through the homo-social aspects of The Club. Golf in the Empire, exhibited a similar, if smaller scale growth in popularity at this time. Golf had been played in an imperial setting for years and had exhibited the needs to exclude on the basis of gender, class and most importantly for the imperial setting, race. British elites were equally engaged with the game during The Golf Boom, but were enthralled with more "manly" options open to them in a colonial setting.
Golf may have been a "lesser game" but its growth in popularity during the years of 1880-1900 at home and abroad not only provided a locus for the reflection of new social stratification in England but also a cultural form where traditional notions of masculinity and gender were both consolidated and challenged. Out in the empire, the exclusionary trend found in golfand golfclubs, as an expression ofexclusion away from the work and colonized of empire, continued on a trajectory at line with the current trends of both home and paradoxically at odds with those in colonial society. It would be some time before the contemporary world and nationalist movements would manage to break down the walls of power established by the exclusivity of the colonial golf club, caught as it was in the trappings of its high imperial era context. This thesis may even help explain why I play and love such a "stupid" game.