Women as Leaders: What Women Have Attained In and Through the Field of Physical Education

Abstract

In her 1792 treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft proclaimed that when girls were allowed to take the same exercise as boys the fiction of the ‘natural superiority of man’ would be exposed. A century later, as growing numbers of women began engaging in sports and achieving a place of distinction in the profession of physical education, her assertion became a reality. Few people today know that women were serving as presidents of the inclusive American Physical Education Association decades before any became the president of organizations such as the American Medical Association or the American Historical Association – or how early they had achieved other leadership positions. Although a considerable number of informative books now exist regarding what women have achieved in and through sporting competitions, to date the only comprehensive treatment of what women once attained in and through physical education has been Shelia Fletcher's book Women First: The Female Tradition in Physical Education in English Physical Education, 1880–1980. This article sets down foundations for bringing about better understandings of the American experience.

Notes

[1] Hartman and Banner, Clio's Consciousness Raised, xii.

[2] Gerber et al., The American Woman in Sport, v.

[3] For example, Mangan and Park, From ‘Fair Sex’ to Feminism.

[4] For example, Guttmann, Women's Sports; Cahn, Coming on Strong; Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom.

[5] Fletcher, Women First.

[6] Scott and Hoferek, Women as Leaders, 2.

[7]‘Athletics’ quickly became its ‘public face’ as feminists and others who had been advocating greater opportunities for females seized upon it to advance their cause.

[8] Savage, American College Athletics.

[9] See for example Park, ‘Concern for Health and Exercise’.

[10]‘Physical Education’.

[11] Fowle, ‘Gymnastic Exercises for Females’.

[12] Three informative books regarding these matters are: Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness; Green, Fit for America; and Grover, Fitness in American Culture.

[13] Caldwell, Thoughts on Physical Education; Blackwell, The Laws of Life.

[14]Prospectus of Vassar Female College, 1865, 3.

[15]First Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Vassar, 28. See also Ballintine, The History of Physical Training at Vassar College.

[16] See Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 325–31.

[17] Duffy, The Sanitarians, ch. 9.

[18] Smith, ‘Preludes to the NCAA’; Smith, Sports and Freedom.

[19] Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 391. The other was Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago.

[20] On football injuries see, Park, ‘Mended or Ended?’

[21] Lewis, ‘Theodore Roosevelt's Role in the 1905 Football Controversy’.

[22] Correspondence between Eliot and Hadley located in the Archives at Harvard University and Yale University is quite informative. See also ‘Football and Its Distorted Values’, 147.

[23] Hetherington, School Program in Physical Education; Wood and Cassidy, The New Physical Education.

[24]‘The Athletic Research Society’. On Hetherington, see Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 389–93.

[25] Since its establishment the national physical education organization has had seven names: Association for the Advancement to Physical Education (1885); American Association for the Advancement to Physical Education (1886–1903); American Physical Education Association (1903–37); American Association for Health and Physical Education (1937–8); American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (1938–74); American Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (1974–9); American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (1979–present).

[26]‘Announcement of the Research Section’; Clarke, ‘History of the Research Section’.

[27] Fauver, ‘The Place of Intercollegiate Athletics’.

[28] Meylan, ‘Intercollegiate Athletics’.

[29] Sundwell, ‘Relation of Athletics to Physical Education’.

[30] Fauver, ‘The Need for a Definite Formulation’.

[31]‘Vassar Girls in Athletics: The First Field Day in the College's History’, New York Times, 21 Oct. 1895.

[32] See Beran, ‘Playing to the Right Drummer’; Beran, From Six-on-Six to Full Court Press.

[33] The title would change five more times by 1974: Section on Women's Athletics (1927–31); Rules and Editorial Committee (1931–2); National Section on Women's Athletics (1932–53); National Section on Girls' and Women's Sports (1953–6); Division for Girls and Women's Sports (1957–74).

[34] Letter from Blanche M. Trilling to Lou Henry Hoover, 2 Feb. 1923, cited in endnote 25 of Hult, ‘The Governance of Athletics for Girls and Women’.

[35] Bunting, ‘The Washington Conference on Athletics for Girls’.

[36] In 1922 the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy had called representatives of various athletic associations to Washington, DC, in the hope of creating an organization that might promote and improve men's amateur sports. The result was the creation of the National Amateur Athletic Federation – and soon the Women's Division of the NAAF. See for example Lucas and Smith, Saga of American Sport, 351–3.

[37] Sefton, The Women's Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation. They had less influence in the broader sporting arena.

[38] Lee, ‘The Case for and Against Intercollegiate Athletics’; Wellesley College, 1923–24 Bulletin of the Mary Hemenway Alumnae Association, Graduate Department of Hygiene and Physical Education, 1–12.

[39] Lee, ‘The Case for and Against Intercollegiate Athletics’. Lee had sent a questionnaire to female directors of 50 ‘leading’ colleges and universities asking for information about what types of activities were offered and the respondent's opinion of the advantages and disadvantages of intercollegiate athletics. One individual who responded also expressed concern that there would be a tendency to employ the ‘coach type’ of woman – a person who did not have an ‘educational attitude’ toward her work.

[40]‘Report of the Advisory Committee on Athletics for High School Girls’.

[41] See for example H'Doubler, Dance; Gray and Howe, ‘Margaret H'Doubler’; Park, ‘Creating From Minds and Bodies’; Vertinsky, ‘Mothers of the Dance’.

[42] Flexner, Century of Struggle.

[43] Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science, 3–7.

[44] Fletcher, Women First, 4–5. This single-sex sphere of influence was strengthened because there were no physical training colleges for men in Britain before the 1930s.

[45]‘Female Physicians’, Philadelphia Medical Times, 12 July 1888, 597–8.

[46] For more information regarding Welsh, see Zieff, ‘Leading the Way in Science’.

[47] For more information regarding Mosher see, Wrynn, ‘Eliza Maria Mosher’.

[48] Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 325–31.

[49] Lee, Memories Beyond Bloomers, 88–96.

[50] Mary C. Coleman (1933–4); Agnes R. Weyman (1935–6); Margaret Bell (1939–40); Ann Schley Duggan (1941–2). For an account of the presidents see Lee and Bennett, ‘This Is Our Heritage’.

[51] In 1943 Nellie Neilson served as the first female president of the AHA: ‘Presidents of the American Historical Association, 1884–1984’.See also www.historians.org/info/ahahistory.cfm (accessed March 2009). Bodil M. Schmidt-Nielsen, daughter of the noted Danish physiologists August and Marie Keogh, became the first women president of the APS. See Brobeck et al., History of the American Physiological Society.

[52] This information was kindly sent to the author in 2005 by Laura L. Carroll, AMA Archivist.

[53] Moore, Restoring the Balance.

[54] Spears, ‘The Influential Miss Homans’.

[55] See Spears, Leading the Way for the most detailed account.

[56] Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 368–73. According to Gerber, Perrin was ‘one of the few leaders who approved of competition’ (at least controlled competition) for girls.

[57] The Mid-West District Association and other ‘district associations’ should not be confused with the single-sex Middle West Society of College Directors of Physical Education for Women and other ‘district societies’ of physical education.

[58] Hill, The Way We Were, 6–7.

[59] Ainsworth, ‘The National Association of Physical Education for College Women’. A Southern section was added in 1935; and in 1936 the Middle West Society divided into Central and Midwest societies.

[60]Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Physical Education at Its Organization at Brooklyn, 3–4.

[61] Gulick, ‘Physical Education’; Wood, ‘Some Unsolved Problems in Physical Education’.

[62] Regarding Fitz see Park, ‘Rise and Demise of Harvard's BS Program’.

[63]‘Editorial Note and Comment’.

[64] For example, McCormick, ‘College Athletics from the Viewpoint of the President of a University’ (McCormick was Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh).

[65] Foster, ‘Basket Ball for Girls’.

[66] Ballintine, ‘Out-of-Door Sports for College Women’.

[67] Gerber, Innovators and Institutions, 357–62.

[68] Bancroft, ‘Pioneering in Physical Education’; Bancroft, ‘Some Essentials of Physical Training’.

[69] Norris, ‘A Method of Testing’; Collins and Howe, ‘Measurement of Organic and Neuromuscular Fitness’; Griffith, ‘Psychology and Its Relation to Athletic Competition’.

[70] In instances where only the letters of the first and middle names appear it is sometimes difficult to determine the gender. The author's college or other affiliation can help.

[71] American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, Research Methods.

[72] Kistler, ‘Future Directions in Physical Education’.

[73]‘The Contributions of Physical Activity to Human Well-Being’.

[74] This section draws upon Park, ‘“Time Given Freely to Worthwhile Causes”’.

[75] See Park, ‘Symbol, Celebration, and the Reduction of Conflict’.

[76]‘What's Wrong With American Youth?’US News and World Report, 19 March 1954, 35–6; ‘The Report That Shocked the President’, Sports Illustrated, 15 Aug. 1955, 30–3; 72–3.

[77] For an overview of these matters see, Park, Measurement of Physical Fitness: A Historical Perspective. The tests were criticized by some as being inefficient. However, because much of the testing had to be done by teachers who had no training in physical education they had to be simple.

[78] Genevie Dexter to Carl Nordly (Chair of the Department of Physical Education, University of California), 25 Feb. 1963. University of California, Bancroft Library Archival Collections, Hearst Gymnasium Historical Collections.

[79] Thomas, ‘Motor Behavior’, 242–3.

[80] This section draws upon Park, ‘“An Affirmation of the Abilities of Woman”’.

[81] Lee, Memories Beyond Bloomers, 268.

[82] Clark Hetherington, personal communication, 24 June 1927, Archives of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA (hereafter Archives of the AAKPE).

[83] Arthur Steinhaus, personal communication, 14 Nov. 1931, Archives of the AAKPE.

[84] Charles McCloy, personal communication, 25 Jan. 1935, Archives of the AAKPE.

[85] This information can be gleaned from annual ‘Biographical Sketches of Candidates’ located in the Archives of the AAKPE.

[86] Mabel Lee (1941–3); Rosalind Cassidy (1950–1); Anna S. Espenschade (1955–6); Helen Manley (1959–60); M. Gladys Scott (1961–2); Eleanor Metheny (1964–5); Margaret G. Fox (1967–8); Laura J. Huelster (1968–9); Ruth M. Wilson (1970–1); Ann E. Jewett (1973–4); Leona Holbrook (1975–6) ; Marguerite A. Clifton (1978–9); Aileene S. Lockhart (1980–1); Margaret J. Safrit (1986–7); Waneen Spirduso (1988–9); Roberta J. Park (1990–1).

[87] Rugen, ‘Physical Education's Contributions to Health Education’; Ainsworth, ‘Contributions of Physical Education to the Social Service Agency’; Cassidy, ‘Contributions of Physical Education to Democratic Citizenship’; Duggan, ‘The Place of Dance’; Lamb et al., ‘The Contributions of Physical Education to Medicine’.

[88] Johnson, Science and Medicine of Exercise and Sport, viii.

[89] Henry, ‘Physical Education – An Academic Discipline’.

[90] Bressan, ‘2001: The Profession Is Dead’.

[91] Perry, ‘Merging Departments’.

[92] Scott and Hoferek, Women As Leaders in Physical Education, 2.

[93] According to a recent longitudinal study the number of women athletic directors dropped from more than 90 per cent in 1972 to 21.3 per cent in 2008 – in Division I, women accounted for only 8.4 per cent. The number who coached women's teams also had lowered from more than 90 per cent in 1978 to 42.8 per cent in 2008 – the number of head coaches now was only 20.6 per cent. See ‘Women in Intercollegiate Sport: A Longitudinal, National Study, Thirty One Year Update, 1977–2008’, available at http://www.acostacarpenter.org/2008%20Summary, accessed March 2009.

[94] Safrit, ‘Women in Research in Physical Education’.

[95] Safrit, ‘Women in Research in Physical Education: A 1984 Update’.

[96] See Park, ‘An Affirmation of the Abilities of Woman’.

[97] Hoffman, ‘Specialization + Fragmentation = Extermination’; Thomas, ‘Physical Education and Paranoia – Synonyms’.

[98] Hellison, ‘The Whole Person in Physical Education Scholarship’.

[99] US Department of Health and Human Services, Physical Activity and Health, v.

[100] Kohl et al., ‘Physical Activity and Public Health’.

[101] According to the Center for Disease Control's recent ‘Guidelines for School Health Programs to Promote Physical Activity’, the percentage of high-school students who attended daily physical education classes dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 33 per cent in 2005. The same report states that the percentage of overweight children ages six to 11 rose from 6.1 per cent in 1974 to 15.1 per cent in 1999. For those ages 12 to 19 the increase was from 6.5 per cent in 1976 to 14.8 per cent in 2000. (The fact that large numbers of children and youth now fail to engage in anything approaching adequate amounts of physical activity is very troubling, for it is during childhood and adolescence that proper habits regarding exercise are most likely to be developed.) See www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/physicalactivity/guidelines/summary.htm, accessed March 2009.

[102] See Park, ‘An Affirmation of the Abilities of Woman’.