The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States ─ Cathedrals of Sport

Many Americans know more about the stadiums that loom over their cityscapes or college campuses than they do about any other aspect of the nation’s geography. Stadiums serve as iconic monuments of urban and university identities. Indeed, the power of sport in modern American culture has produced ‘sportscapes’—landscapes literally shaped by their devotion to athletic competition. Curiously, given the importance of the secular cathedrals in American culture, historians have paid little attention to these edifices. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport seeks to remedy that oversight. This book will analyze stadiums from a variety of perspectives, paying special attention to the links between the ‘built environment’ in which Americans watch and play games and the larger social environments that the nation’s sporting practices inhabit. The Rise of Stadiums in the Modern United States: Cathedrals of Sport explores the role of stadiums in shaping urban identities, determining the economics of intercollegiate athletics, influencing local and national politics.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Mark Dyreson is an associate professor of kinesiology and an affiliate professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. He has published more than fifty journal articles and book chapters and several books including Making the American Team: Sport, Culture and the Olympic Experience (University of Illinois Press, 1998), Crafting Patriotism for Global Dominance: America at the Olympics (Routledge, 2008), and, with J.A. Mangan, Sport and American Society: Insularity, Exceptionalism and 'Imperialism' (Routledge, 2007).

Robert Trumpbour is assistant professor of communications at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College. He is the author of The New Cathedrals: Politics and Media in the History of Stadium Construction (Syracuse University Press, 2007). He has written in and has been invited to speak at a variety of venues, including an invitation to Harvard Law School, on the politics of ballpark construction. Trumpbour is active in several organizations, including AEJMC, MAPACA, NASSH, and SABR.