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A Blanket Of Smoke Over Urban America/Caddies On Early American Golf Courses
Boyce, Kathleen Loretta
Boyce, Kathleen Loretta
Abstract
A Blanket of Smoke Over Urban America: Early Connections Between Industrialization and the Environment in the Progressive Era This essay examines the smoke abatement movements in the United States as a result of the volume of smoke output by industrial cities during the Progressive Era. The anti-smoke and anti-pollution movements of this era fit within a growing national environmental consciousness, and the urban environmental movements also fit within the context of progressive reform movements, particularly those championed by women. Smoke abatement became a women's issue. The dominant narrative of these women's efforts in smoke abatement has focused on women's moral reform language coming from feminine perspectives and the domestic sphere. In initiating the smoke abatement movement, women were inserting themselves into politics and demonstrated that they cared about the environmental pollution of their cities. The smoke abatement movement made headlines thanks to the women who forced the issue to the forefront of American consciousness. Simultaneously occurring during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era was the developing science and growing awareness around the world on the connection between human pollution and a future warming climate. The smoke abatement movement, led by women, did not exist within a vacuum, but was engaging critically with scientists, doctors, engineers, and politicians of the time. Caddies on Early American Golf Courses: A Tradition Like Every Other This essay examines the relationship between golfers and their caddies. The paper uses golf as a lens to examine broader themes of race and class in during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The paper begins by addressing the rise of recreation and country club culture in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. Caddies became an essential aspect of golf and country clubs; the wealthy recreational golfers enjoyed having young lower-class boys carry their clubs for them throughout the course. These caddies often came from poor and minority families, such as Indian tribes, immigrants, or African Americans. While the caddies are abundantly present throughout the primary documents, they are absent from the historiography. Numerous documents portray the relationship between golfer and caddy in largely negative and comedic light. Caddies are often shown as foolish, numerous images show the caddies being beaten with golf clubs, and some African American and Indian caddies are advertised as part of the experience a wealthy white person would have when golfing in the South or the West. Some caddies chose to strike as a result of their treatment. The paper demonstrates how this is a topic in need of further exploration.
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2020-01-01
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History
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-nvqr-9m48