Marketing Weissmuller to the World: Hollywood's Olympics and Federal Schemes for Americanization through Sport

Abstract

Building on plans developed in the 1920s, the US government used the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics to expand their scheme to Americanize the world through sport. Frustrated that the world did not share their passion for the American trinity of national pastimes, baseball, basketball and American football, the government experts turned once again to swimming in an effort to make their plan work. They found a powerful advertisement for Americanism in Johnny Weissmuller, the great US Olympic swimmer of the 1920s who in the 1930s migrated to Hollywood and achieved global stardom as Hollywood's iconic Tarzan. To expand the campaign federal officials from the US Departments of State and Commerce collected copious amounts of data on foreign sporting cultures in an effort to design a marketing plan to sell American civilization through sport. The federal designs reveal new contours in the American habit of crafting patriotism through the Olympics.

Notes

[1]‘Los Angeles Wants Olympic Games’, New York Times, 5 April 1915; Riess, ‘Power Without Authority’; AOC, Report of the American Olympic Committee, 422–4; Guttmann, The Olympics, 41–4; Senn, Power, Politics and the Olympic Games, 38–40.

[2] Lattimer, Official Report: III Olympic Winter Games, 47–8.

[3] My initial exploration of this topic appeared in Sportwissenschaft in 2004: Dyreson, ‘Globalizing American Sporting Culture’.

[4] James H. Smiley to Eric T. King, 8 March 1930; Eric T. King to the James H. Smiley, 27 March 1930, Sporting Goods – General, 1930 File, box 849, Records of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, General Records of the Department of Commerce, Record Group 151 (hereafter RG 151), National Archives and Record Administration II, College Park, MD (hereafter NACP).

[5] Robert J. Phillips to Wilbur J. Carr, 10 April 1930; Robert J. Phillips to Wilbur J. Carr, 28 March 1930, box 5026, State Department Records Division, Record Group 59 (hereafter RG 59), NACP.

[6] In their official report to the US Congress the Commerce Department's analysts noted that ‘At present the division is cooperating with the American Olympic Games Committee in securing from foreign countries lists of sporting and athletic associations that may participate in the 1932 Olympic events. This, with related information, will be highly useful to exporters of athletic and kindred goods’. US Department of Commerce, Eighteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1930, 133.

[7] Phillips to Carr, 10 April 1930; Phillips to Carr, 28 March 1930; box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[8] Questionnaire no. 302, ‘Sports’, Eric King to James W. Furness, 25 March 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[9] The entire list of cities and nations where the Department of Commerce planned to send the questionnaire was Accra, Athens, Batavia, Berlin, Berne, Bogota, Brussels, Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Calcutta, Caracas, Copenhagen, Guatemala, Havana, The Hague, Helsingfors, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Lima, London, Madrid, Manila, Mexico City, Montevideo, Mukden, Oslo, Ottawa, Panama City, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, San Juan, Santiago, Shanghai, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, Vienna, Warsaw, and Wellington. Questionnaire no. 302, ‘Sports’, Eric King to James W. Furness, 25 March 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[10] The list included, in the geographic vernacular of 1930, ‘Asuncion (Paraguay), Baghdad (Iraq), Bangkok (Siam), Barbados (Barbados), Beirut (Syria), Belfast (Northern Ireland), Belgrade (Yugoslavia), Belize (British Honduras), Colombo (Ceylon), Corinto (Nicaragua), Curacao (Netherland West Indies), Dublin (Irish Free State), Guayaquil (Ecuador), Hamilton (Bermuda), Kingston (Jamaica), Kovno (Lithuania), La Paz (Bolivia), Lisbon (Portugal), Luxemburg (Luxemburg), Malta (Malta), Monrovia (Liberia), Nairobi (Kenya Colony), Nassau (Bahamas), Nice (Monaco), Port au Prince (Haiti), St John's (Newfoundland), San Jose (Costa Rica), San Salvador (El Salvador), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Sofia (Bulgaria), Tangier (Morocco), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Tenerife (Canary Islands), Triana (Albania), Trinidad (Trinidad)’. Questionnaire no. 302, ‘Sports’, Eric King to James W. Furness, 25 March 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[11] Commercial Office, US Department of State, to Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 1 April 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[12]US Acting Secretary of State to Certain American Consular Officers, memo on Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 22 April 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[13] J.T. Kadding to the Assistant US Secretary of State, memo, 19 Dec. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[14] Richard Southgate to the Assistant US Secretary of State, memo, undated, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[15] US Department of Commerce, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1931, 112.

[16]The vast majority of histories of sport in the 1920s and 1930s, and indeed for the entire modern epoch, concentrate on the Anglo-American universe. A lesser number focus on sport in other industrialized nations in Europe and Asia. Studies of national identity and sport seemed to spew forth in the wake of Eric Hobsbawm's and Terence Ranger's The Invention of Tradition, particularly since they identified sport as a key element in manufacturing national traditions. Among the best of the slew of studies on national identity and sport are: Adair and Vamplew, Sport in Australian History; Beck, Scoring for Britain; Booth, The Race Game; Brownell, Training the Body for China; Cronin, Sport and Nationalism in Ireland; Edelman, Serious Fun; Gorn, The Manly Art; Hoberman, Sport and Political Ideology; Holt, Sport and the British; Jarvie and Walker, Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation; Kirsch, The Creation of American Team Sports; Levine, A.G. Spalding and the Rise of Baseball; Mangan, Pleasure, Profit, and Proselytism; Mrozek, Sport and American Mentality; Nauright, Sport, Culture, and Identities in South Africa; Pope, Patriotic Games; Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment.

[17] Arbena, Sport and Society in Latin America; Lever, Soccer Madness; Mason, Passion of the People?; Torres, ‘Mass Sport Through Education or Elite Olympic Sport?’.

[18] Allen Guttmann has sought to remedy that neglect in Sports: The First Five Millennia.

[19] R. Austin Acly to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, Honduras as a Whole, 9 Sept. 1931; Harold D. Clum to US Department of State, Sports in Ecuador, 26 Jan. 1931, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[20] James chastised social theorists, especially his fellow Marxists, for ignoring sport. He contended sport was a central force in the creation of modern cultures. ‘A glance at the world showed that when the common people were not at work, one thing they wanted was organized sports and games. They wanted them greedily, passionately,’ asserted James in his withering critique of scholars who purported to study modern social relations yet had no real conception of the basic cultural question: ‘What do men live by?’ James, Beyond a Boundary, 152.

[21] Paul Bowerman to US Department of State, Sports in Yugoslavia, 18 April 1931, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[22] Bertel E. Kuniholm to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad: Lithuania, 1 July 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[23] Samuel Green to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 14 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[24] Robertson Honey to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, Monaco, 17 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[25] Edwin J. King to US Department of State Report, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 29 July 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[26] Charles E. Dickerson to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 31 Jan. 1931; Charles E. Dickerson to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 18 April 1931; Charles E. Dickerson to A. Belananchi, memo, 29 Jan. 1931; Eric T. King to the Cairo Office, US Department of Commerce, memo, 18 May 1930, Sporting Goods – by Country, Australia to Philippine Islands File, box 850, RG 151, NACP.

[27] Julian E. Gillespie to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 10 May 1930; Eric T. King to the Istanbul Office, US Department of Commerce, 4 Oct. 1930, Sporting Goods – by Country, Puerto Rico to West Africa File, box 850, RG 151, NACP.

[28] D.F. McGonigal to US Department of State Report, Sports in Syria, 6 Aug. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[29] Horace Remillard to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad: Tangier Consular District, 4 Aug. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[30] US Acting Secretary of State to Certain American Consular Officers, memo on Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 22 April 1930.

[31] William Werner Bradford to Eric T. King, 25 July 1930; Samuel R. Day to Specialties Division, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 9 June 1930; Eric T. King to the Johannesburg Office, US Department of Commerce, 31 July 1930; Eric T. King to Edward B. Lawson, 27 Sept. 1930, Sporting Goods – by Country, Puerto Rico to West Africa File, box 850, RG 151, NACP.

[32] C.H. Hall, Jr. to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 18 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[33] Edgar W. O'Harrow to the Specialties Division, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 5 Feb. 1931; Robert J. Phillips to Wilbur J. Carr, memo, 27 Oct. 1932, Sporting Goods – by Country, Australia to Philippine Islands File, box 850, RG 151, NACP.

[34] The State Department also requested a report from Bangkok, Siam (now Thailand). Acting US Secretary of State to Certain American Consular Officers, memo on Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 22 April 1930.

[35] Stillman W. Eells to US Department of State, Sports in Ceylon, 22 July 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[36] Acting US Secretary of State to Certain American Consular Officers, memo on Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 22 April 1930.

[37] A. Ogden Pierrot to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 12 Dec. 1930; Eric T. King to the Rio de Janeiro Office, US Department of Commerce, memo, 3 Feb. 1931; Walter J. Donnelly to the Specialities Division, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 4 Feb. 1931; Walter J. Donnelly to LaVerne Baldwin, memo, 19 Aug. 1930; Walter J. Donnelly to Harold B. Minor, memo, 25 Aug. 1930; Robert J. Phillips to Wilbur J. Carr, memo, 21 Sept. 1932; Arch F. Coleman to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 28 June 1930; E.J. Breyere to the Mexico City Office, US Department of Commerce, memo, 4 Aug. 1930; Arch F. Coleman, to the Director, US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, memo, 6 Sept. 1930; Sporting Goods – by Country, Australia to Philippine Islands File, box 850, RG 151, NACP.

[38] Sheldon T. Mills to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 19 Aug. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[39] Harold D. Clum to US Department of State, Sports in Ecuador, 26 Jan. 1931, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[40] John B. Faust to US Department of State, Sports Data – Paraguay, 30 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[41] For an excellent history of the connections between the Canadian Maritime provinces and US sporting culture see Howell, ‘Borderlands, Baselines and Bearhunters’.

[42] Thomas D. Bergin, to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 26 May 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[43] Reed Paige Clark to US Department of State, Sports Data: Dominican Republic, 10 Dec. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[44] Donald R. Heath to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 12 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[45] Fred D. Fisher, to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Tenth Olympiad, 17 July 1930, William W. Brunswick to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 21 June 1930, Clay Merrell to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 10 May 1930; George F. Kelly to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 19 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP; Alfredo Demorest to US Department of State, Sports Data on Trinidad for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 10 Dec. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[46] A.E. Carleton to US Department of State, Sports, 8 May 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[47] Macaulay, The Sandino Affair.

[48] Christian T. Steger to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 19 June 1930, box 5026, RG 59, NACP.

[49] Murray, The World's Game, 167.

[50] Steger to US Department of State, 19 June 1930; Lawrence F. Cotie to US Department of State, Sports, 17 March 1931, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[51] G.R. Taggart to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, British Honduras, 31 July 1931, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[52] R.W. Unckles to US Department of State, Sport Data from Costa Rica for the Management of the Tenth Olympic Games, 25 Aug. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[53] Brandes, Herbert Hoover and Economic Diplomacy; Feis, The Diplomacy of the Dollar; Wilson, American Business and Foreign Policy; LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions; Iriye, The Globalizing of America.

[54] McCormick and LaFeber, Behind the Throne; Plischke, US Department of State; Mrozek, Sport and American Mentality.

[55] See the chapter on ‘The Club Sports Go Public’, in Rader, American Sports, 191–200.

[56] Lewis, Babbitt.

[57] Merrell to US Department of State, 10 May 1930; Kelly to US Department of State, 19 June 1930.

[58] Eells to US Department of State, 22 July 1930.

[59] Steger to US Department of State, 19 June 1930; Heath to US Department of State, 12 June 1930.

[60] Mills to US Department of State, 19 Aug. 1930.

[61] Eells to US Department of State, 22 July 1930.

[62] Bowerman to US Department of State, 18 April 1931.

[63] Kelly to US Department of State, 19 June 1930.

[64] Mills to US Department of State, 19 Aug. 1930.

[65] McGonigal to US Department of State, 6 Aug. 1930; Bunswick to US Department of State, 21 June 1930; Green to US Department of State, 14 June 1930.

[66] Hall to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, 18 June 1930.

[67] This report promised that the ‘comprehensive publication’ on global sport ‘is nearing completion’. A search of federal publications from 1931 to the US entry into the Second World War in 1941 reveals that this ‘trade book’ was never published. US Department of Commerce, Nineteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1931, 112.

[68] Murray, The World's Game.

[69] Heath to US Department of State, 12 June 1930.

[70] Carleton to US Department of State, 8 May 1930.

[71] Unckles to US Department of State, 25 Aug. 1930.

[72] Steger to US Department of State, 19 June 1930.

[73] Cotie to US Department of State, 17 March 1931.

[74] Faust to US Department of State, 30 June 1930.

[75] Clum to US Department of State, 26 Jan. 1931.

[76] Bowerman to US Department of State, 18 April 1931.

[77] Remillard to US Department of State, 4 Aug. 1930.

[78] Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow, 30.

[79] Acly to US Department of State, 9 Sept. 1931.

[80] Kuniholm to US Department of State, 1 July 1930.

[81] Faust to US Department of State, 30 June 1930.

[82] Clark to US Department of State, 10 Dec. 1930.

[83] Demorest to US Department of State, 10 Dec., 1930; Merrell to US Department of State, 10 May 1930; Fisher to US Department of State, 17 July 1930; Kelly to US Department of State, 19 June 1930; Brunswick to US Department of State, 21 June 1930.

[84] Remillard to US Department of State, 4 Aug. 1930.

[85] Carleton to US Department of State, Sports, 8 May 1930.

[86] Guttmann, From Ritual to Record.

[87] Reports on Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, NACP.

[88] The reports indicated that indigenous shoe-manufacturing industries operated in Yugoslavia, Ecuador, Honduras and El Salvador. Interestingly, in the last few decades Nike has skilfully used the indigenous shoemaking traditions in underdeveloped nations to dominate the international athletic shoe market, and has recently moved to compete with Adidas for the global soccer market. LaFeber, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism; Katz, Just Do It; Strasser and Becklund, Swoosh.

[89] Specific calls for aggressive advertising campaigns were made in the reports from Ceylon, Malta, Lithuania, Costa Rica, Barbados and Ecuador.

[90] Kuniholm to US Department of State, 1 July 1930.

[91] The reports from Lithuania and Ecuador used the precise term ‘price market’. Most of the other reports used different language to convey the same concept.

[92] Demorest to US Department of State, 10 Dec. 1930.

[93] King to US Department of State Report, 29 July 1930.

[94] Clark to US Department of State, 10 Dec. 1930.

[95] Steger to US Department of State, 19 June 1930.

[96] US Department of Commerce, Twentieth Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1932, 56.

[97]‘Demonstrations – American Football and Lacrosse’, in Xth Olympiade Committee, The Games of the Xth Olympiad, 739–47.

[98]‘Ruth in Olympic Post’, New York Times, 9 Feb. 1936. The baseball campaign did not bear fruit until 1992. That fruit quickly rotted. In 2005 the IOC, citing a lack of global appeal, dropped baseball from the Olympic programme. Bob Hohler, ‘Olympic World Turns with Ever-Less American Influence’, Boston Globe, 20 Feb. 2006.

[99] Grundman, ‘AAU-NCAA Politics’.

[100]‘A Swimming Nation’, New York Herald Tribune, 22 July 1924.

[101] Dyreson, ‘Icons of Liberty or Objects of Desire?’.

[102] Nendel, ‘New Hawaiian Monarchy’, 32–52.

[103] Hugh S. Miller to US Department of State, Sports in Malta, 29 July 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[104] McGonigal to US Department of State, 6 Aug. 1930.

[105] Donald F. Bigelow to US Department of State, Sports Data for the Management of the Tenth Olympiad, French Zone of Morocco, 24 Nov. 1930, box 5027, RG 59, NACP.

[106] Remillard to US Department of State, 4 Aug. 1930.

[107] Carleton, to US Department of State, Sports, 8 May 1930.

[108] Fisher to US Department of State, 17 July 1930; Brunswick to US Department of State, 21 June 1930; Merrell to US Department of State, 10 May 1930; Kelly to US Department of State, 19 June 1930; Demorest to US Department of State, 10 Dec. 1930.

[109] Bowerman to US Department of State, 18 April 1931.

[110] Clum to US Department of State, 26 Jan. 1931.

[111] Mills to US Department of State, 19 Aug. 1930.

[112] Bergin to US Department of State, 26 May 1930.

[113] Steger to US Department of State, 19 June 1930.

[114] Merrell to US Department of State, 10 May 1930; Fisher to US Department of State, 17 July 1930; Kelly to US Department of State, 19 June 1930; Brunswick to US Department of State, 21 June 1930; McGonigal to US Department of State, 6 Aug. 1930; Honey to US Department of State, 17 June 1930; Bigelow to US Department of State, 24 Nov. 1930; Remillard to US Department of State, 4 Aug. 1930; Miller to US Department of State, 29 July 1930.

[115] Seventy years later, after relentlessly pushing American culture and American sport around the world, Michael Jordan ranked second behind Zhou Enlai in a poll of Chinese schoolchildren's rankings of the most important historical figures in modern history. One wonders where Jordan would rank if he had been a soccer player. LaFeber, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism, 27.

[116] The noted California historian Kevin Starr dates the state's central role in the modern American ‘search for the good life’ to the 1930s and 1940s. He details the role of beaches and adventure sports in the creation of the California ‘lifestyle’ in American imaginations: Starr, The Dream Endures, 3–57. He continues his analysis through the contemporary California scene, noting the state's crucial role in the invention of postmodern ‘alternative’ sports: Starr, Coast of Dreams, 3–26. See also, Allen, What It Felt Like; Baritz, The Good Life; Farber, The Age of Great Dreams; Fink, The Conquest of Cool; Lencek and Baker, Making Waves; May, Golden State, Golden Youth; Osgerby, Playboys in Paradise; Rail, Sport and Postmodern Times; Rinehart and Sydnor, To The Extreme; Watts, The Magic Kingdom.

[117] Guttmann, Sports, 323–5.