Breaking Baseball Barriers: The 1953–1954 Negro League and Expansion of Women's Public Roles

Abstract

Newspaper coverage of the first women to play men's professional baseball is analyzed in this historical study. The three women: Toni Stone, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Connie Morgan, played in the Negro League during 1953 and 1954. Coverage in an African-American newspaper and in mainstream white newspapers reveals that the African-American press portrayed the women as precedent-setters and heroines in their community, while the mainstream press virtually ignored the women ballplayers. Storie, Morgan, and Johnson, all skilled athletes, were able to play baseball with men because of their athletic skills, a willingness by the Negro League to take risks to boost attendance, and an increased public role taken by African-American women in the postwar period of the early 1950s.