Download or read book Beyond the Finish Line written by Jonathan Finn and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2020-09-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1880s photographers and sports enthusiasts confidently declared the end of dead heats in sporting competition. Reflecting a broader social belief in technology, proponents of the camera stressed that the device could provide definitive proof of who won and who lost. Yet despite this remedy for the inadequate human eye, competitive races between horses, boats, and bicycles ended too close to call a sole champion. More than a century later, when cameras can subdivide the second into ten-thousandths and beyond, athletes continue to cross the finish line in ties. In this fascinating journey through the history of the photo-finish in sports, Jonathan Finn shows how innovation was animated by a drive for ever more precise tools and a quest for perfect measurement. As he traces the technological developments inspired by this crusade - from the evolution of the still camera to movie cameras, ultimately leading to complex contemporary photo-finish systems - Finn uncovers the social implications of adopting and contesting the photograph as evidence in sport. At every turn empirical obsession intersects with the unpredictability of sports, creating a paradox wherein the precision offered by photo-finish technology far exceeds the realities of human performance and its measurement. Separating athletes by the hundredth, thousandth, or ten-thousandth of a second is often a fiction that comes with significant material and cultural implications. A lively biography of a critical technology, Beyond the Finish Line illuminates the cultural role of the photo-finish in win-at-all-costs culture and warn that in our pursuit for precision we may threaten the human element of sport that galvanizes mere spectators into fans.

Download or read book Racing in America 1922 1936 written by John Hervey and published by . This book was released on 1937 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Harvard Guide to American History written by Frank Freidel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Editions for 1954 and 1967 by O. Handlin and others.

Download or read book On the Waters of the Wissahickon written by Eric Plaag and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 718 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive history of Erdenheim Farm, On the Waters of the Wissahickon separates the facts from the multitude of fictions, revealing the complex and intriguing history behind this important agricultural center along the Wissahickon Creek in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Featuring more than one hundred historical and contemporary illustrations and maps, Eric Plaag's engaging and thorough history of the property chronicles its storied past as well as the inherent value in preserving its future. One of the last intact agricultural parcels in Whitemarsh and Springfield Townships, Erdenheim Farm was at the center of the thoroughbred horseracing world from the 1860s until the late twentieth century. Its illustrious owners have included Aristides Welch, Norman W. Kittson, Robert N. Carson, George D. Widener, Jr., and Fitz Eugene Dixon, Jr., through whom Erdenheim accumulated a rich and fascinating historical pedigree and worldwide attention over the past two centuries. The property is also the subject of extensive lore, including the longstanding rumor that Sirhan Sirhan worked at the farm shortly before his assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, as well as legends that the farm's guests may have included the Marquis de Lafayette and as many as eight U.S. presidents. Once the home of the Lenni Lenape tribe, who in turn sold the property to William Penn during the seventeenth century, the land that would eventually become Erdenheim Farm passed to German immigrant Johann Georg Hocker and several neighboring farmers by 1763. While the farm's name is often attributed to Hocker (Erdenheim loosely translating as "earthly home" in German), and Hocker built the farmhouse most closely associated with this name for much of the nineteenth century, the farm's name probably originates with Dr. James A. McCrea. Under McCrea's ownership during the 1850s, Erdenheim began building a reputation as a highly regarded livestock farm. Its owner from the 1860s until the 1880s, Aristides Welch, brought national attention to Erdenheim through his purchase of major horseracing champions such as Flora Temple and Leamington, transforming the farm into a significant breeding and training operation that produced dozens of national racing champions over the next several decades. Under its next two owners, Norman W. Kittson and Robert N. Carson, Erdenheim's reputation declined even as its boundaries dramatically expanded, but, during the twentieth century, owner George D. Widener, Jr., revived Erdenheim's significance as a world-class thoroughbred operation and livestock showplace. Upon Widener's death, his nephew Fitz Eugene Dixon, Jr., became Erdenheim's primary caretaker and began the painstaking process of preserving Erdenheim even as encroaching suburban sprawl threatened its survival. Through a landmark agreement with the Natural Lands Trust, Dixon permanently protected the oldest parts of Erdenheim. Following Dixon's death in 2006, the Whitemarsh Foundation and nearly a dozen individuals and organizations, including Peter and Bonnie McCausland, worked together to complete a massive land-conservation deal to preserve permanently the majority of Erdenheim's approximately 450 acres as one of the last remaining open spaces in Montgomery County and a unique example of the Philadelphia region's agricultural past.

Download or read book They re Off written by Ed Hotaling and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1995-07-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As much social history as sports history, this is an account of how America's first national resort, Saratoga Springs, gave birth to and nurtured its first national sport and in the process had significant impact on American cultural life. Fine bandw photographs, etchings, and drawings illustrate the text. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Out of the Clouds written by Linda Carroll and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bestselling tradition ofthe The Eighty-Dollar Champion, the propulsive, inspiring Cinderella story of Stymie, an unwanted Thoroughbred, and Hirsch Jacobs, the once dirt-poor trainer who bought the colt on the cheap and molded him into the most popular horse of his time and the richest racehorse the world had ever seen. In the wake of World War II, as turmoil and chaos were giving way to a spirit of optimism, Americans were looking for inspiration and role models showing that it was possible to start from the bottom and work your way up to the top-and they found it in Stymie, the failed racehorse plucked from the discard heap by trainer Hirsch Jacobs. Like Stymie, Jacobs was a commoner in "The Sport of Kings," a dirt-poor Brooklyn city slicker who forged an unlikely career as racing's winningest trainer by buying cheap, unsound nags and magically transforming them into winners. The $1,500 pittance Jacobs paid to claim Stymie became history's biggest bargain as the ultimate iron horse went on to run a whopping 131 races and win 25 stakes, becoming the first Thoroughbred ever to earn more than $900,000. The Cinderella champion nicknamed "The People's Horse" captivated the masses with his rousing charge-from-behind stretch runs, his gritty blue-collar work ethic, and his rags-to-riches success story. In a golden age when horse racing rivaled baseball and boxing as America's most popular pastime, he was every bit as inspiring a sports hero as Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. Taking readers on a crowd-pleasing ride with Stymie and Jacobs, Out of the Clouds -- the winner of the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award -- unwinds a real-life Horatio Alger tale of a dauntless team and its working-class fans who lived vicariously through the stouthearted little colt they embraced as their own.

Download or read book The Collection of First Editions of American Authors Formed by the Late Arthur Swann written by Arthur Swann and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Yankee Doodle Dandy written by John Dizikes and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1890s the world of racing was turned on its ear by a young American who rodeøhorses as no professional jockey had ever ridden: Tod Sloan hitched up his stirrups and thrust his weight far forward. Traditionalists laughed at first and dismissed him as a novelty, but as he came to dominate racing on both sides of the Atlantic, his style of riding became widely imitated, and his famous ?forward seat? remains universally practiced to this day. Sloan?s place in racing lore and popular culture was cemented in 1904 when George M. Cohan wrote and starred in Little Johnny Jones, a Broadway musical based on Sloan?s rise and fall in England. John Dizikes?s portrait of Sloan (1874?1933) shows a small-town, hard-luck, midwestern boy who became an overnight sensation and an international celebrity in a world of breeders, bookmakers, gamblers, hustlers, bluebloods, and princes. As the King of Jockeys in the sport of kings, Sloan lived in high style, until he was banned from British racing and forced to eke out a living on the margins of the sport for thirty years.

Download or read book The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime written by Steven A. Riess and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughbred racing was one of the first major sports in early America. Horse racing thrived because it was a high-status sport that attracted the interest of both old and new money. It grew because spectators enjoyed the pageantry, the exciting races, and, most of all, the gambling. As the sport became a national industry, the New York metropolitan area, along with the resort towns of Saratoga Springs (New York) and Long Branch (New Jersey), remained at the center of horse racing with the most outstanding race courses, the largest purses, and the finest thoroughbreds. Riess narrates the history of horse racing, detailing how and why New York became the national capital of the sport from the mid-1860s until the early twentieth century. The sport’s survival depended upon the racetrack being the nexus between politicians and organized crime. The powerful alliance between urban machine politics and track owners enabled racing in New York to flourish. Gambling, the heart of racing’s appeal, made the sport morally suspect. Yet democratic politicians protected the sport, helping to establish the State Racing Commission, the first state agency to regulate sport in the United States. At the same time, racetracks became a key connection between the underworld and Tammany Hall, enabling illegal poolrooms and off-course bookies to operate. Organized crime worked in close cooperation with machine politicians and local police officers to protect these illegal operations. In The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime, Riess fills a long-neglected gap in sports history, offering a richly detailed and fascinating chronicle of thoroughbred racing’s heyday.

Download or read book Horse People written by Rebecca Louise Cassidy and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world of Thoroughbred racing is glamorous, secretive, dangerous, and seductive—the sport of kings and the poor man's obsession. While the spectacle of racing stirs the imagination, it belies the ruthless business that lies beneath. This engaging original study demystifies this complex world by comparing centers of excellence in Britain and North America. Drawing from intensive field work in Suffolk's Newmarket and Kentucky's Lexington, Rebecca Cassidy gives us the inside track on all players in the industry—from the elite breeders and owners to the stable boys, racetrack workers, and veterinarians. She leads us through horse farms, breeding barns, and yearling sales; explains rigorous training regimens; and brings us trackside on race day. But the history of Thoroughbred racing culture is more than a collection of fascinating characters and exciting events. Cassidy's investigation reveals the factors—ethical, cultural, political, and economic—that have shaped the racing tradition.

Download or read book Sports Media History written by John Carvalho and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research collection explores the ongoing interaction between sports, media, and society throughout important periods in history, from the nineteenth century to the present day. It examines both historical moments and broader trends in sports, with an emphasis on the media’s role. Encompassing a variety of research approaches and perspectives, the book looks at the individuals, mass media outlets and communication technologies that have affected societies on a global scale, including print, photography, broadcast (radio and television), Internet-based media, and public relations/marketing. It presents fascinating new case studies covering topics as diverse as sports journalism and the Third Reich, Argentina at the Mexico World Cup, post-9/11 sports reporting, Martina Navratilova and women’s tennis, the growth of fantasy sport, and the significance of Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson in the history of US sports reporting. This is essential reading for any researcher, student or media professional with an interest in the relationships between sports, culture, and society or in the history of media, culture, or technology.

Download or read book The Foxes of Belair written by Jennifer S. Kelly and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calumet, Claiborne, King Ranch—these iconic names are among the owners and breeders revered by Thoroughbred industry professionals and racing fans around the world. As campaigners of many of the 20th century's top racehorses, their prestige has been confirmed by decades of competition in the Triple Crown, the most esteemed series in American Thoroughbred racing. Even with these substantial legacies, their success is measured against the benchmark set by one of racing's earliest dynasties, the historic Belair Stud. The story of this legendary operation began with William Woodward's childhood memories of grand days at the racetrack, inspiring dreams of breeding a champion or two of his own. During a year working for the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Woodward frequented English racetracks, rekindling that childhood dream of breeding and owning champion Thoroughbreds. Woodward turned those dreams into reality, building Belair Stud on his family's Maryland estate, launching what would become the preeminent Thoroughbred breeding and racing empire in America and chasing racing's biggest prizes in both the United States and England. The defining moment for Belair came when Woodward bred the imported stallion Sir Gallahad III to his mare Marguerite. Their colt, Gallant Fox, became only the second horse in history to win the Preakness Stakes, the Kentucky Derby, and the Belmont Stakes in the same year. In 1935, the farm cemented the Triple Crown as the gold standard for three-year-olds when Gallant Fox's son, Omaha, duplicated his sire's trio of victories, a sweep that sealed the farm's legacy and carved its name in the annals of racing history. In The Foxes of Belair: Gallant Fox, Omaha, and the Quest for the Triple Crown, Jennifer Kelly examines the racing legacies of Gallant Fox and Omaha and how William Woodward's service to racing during the 20th century forever changed the landscape of the American Thoroughbred industry.

Download or read book Great American Thoroughbred Racetracks written by and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 1991 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Steeplechasing written by Peter Winants and published by Derrydale Press. This book was released on 2000-08-17 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steeplechasing provides a long, colorful history of the sport and gives behind-the-scenes portraits of the horses, people, and places of the chase. From the 1800s, enjoy the reproductions of illustrations from colorful sporting journals, and enjoy the writing style of that era which was equally colorful. In more recent times, marvelous action pictures capture the excitement, beauty, and sometimes danger of the sport. Art lovers will also enjoy the color reproductions of horse portraits and race scenes by some of America's best sporting artists. Limited Edition ($175) is bound in a cloth clamshell casing.

Download or read book The Keeneland Association Library written by Amelia King Buckley and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A research center for Thoroughbred racing, breeding, and related subjects, the Keeneland Association Library is located at Keeneland Race Course near Lexington, Kentucky. Amelia King Buckley, who became librarian in 1953, has compiled an alphabetical author listing of the titles in this unique collection as of June 1, 1958. Begun in 1939 with a gift of 2,000 volumes from William Arnold Hanger, the library has grown with the addition of other gifts and purchases, and now comprises one of the finest collections in its field. The published catalog includes more than 900 monograph titles, more than 100 serial titles, selected sales catalogs, private studbooks, bound pamphlets, and a small amount of manuscript material. The volume is illustrated with photographs from the library's remarkable collection of 15,000 negatives taken by the late Charles Christian Cook, one of the first American photographers to specialize in racing scenes.

Download or read book Battleship A Daring Heiress a Teenage Jockey and America s Horse written by Dorothy Ours and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of Battleship, a small American racehorse, his seventeen year old jockey, and his owner who was a woman ahead of her time, and how they challenged convention by entering Britain's most difficult racecourse.

Download or read book Racing for America written by James C. Nicholson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On October 20, 1923, at Belmont Park in New York, Kentucky Derby champion Zev toed the starting line alongside Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, the top colt from England, to compete for a $100,000 purse. Years of Progressive reform efforts had nearly eliminated horse racing in the United States only a decade earlier. But for weeks leading up to the match race that would be officially dubbed the "International," unprecedented levels of newspaper coverage helped accelerate American horse racing's return from the brink of extinction. In this book, James C. Nicholson explores the convergent professional lives of the major players involved in the Horse Race of the Century, including Zev's oil-tycoon owner Harry Sinclair, and exposes the central role of politics, money, and ballyhoo in the Jazz Age resurgence of the sport of kings. Zev was an apt national mascot in an era marked by a humming industrial economy, great coziness between government and business interests, and reliance on national mythology as a bulwark against what seemed to be rapid social, cultural, and economic changes. Reflecting some of the contradiction and incongruity of the Roaring Twenties, Americans rallied around the horse that was, in the words of his owner, "racing for America," even as that owner was reported to have been engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States of millions of barrels of publicly owned oil. Racing for America provides a parabolic account of a nation struggling to reconcile its traditional values with the complexity of a new era in which the US had become a global superpower trending toward oligarchy, and the world's greatest consumer of commercialized spectacle.