The Spectacle
The intersection of sport and entertainment, particularly stage entertainment, in Britain in the early part of the Twentieth Century, as told through the stories of sportsmen and sportswomen who came to Britain in this period.
Strongheart: The parallel stories of representations of American football in early Twentieth Century Britain and quarterback Lucius Banks Jr, the first American and African American to play professional rugby in England.
Hullo, America!: Baseball-themed entertainment on the British stage in the late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century.
All the World’s on Wheels: Huckster Chester P. Crawford and the Edwardian-era roller skating craze in Britain.
The Cooler: Frank Craig, the ‘Harlem Coffee Cooler’, lights up the boxing ring and music hall stage.
The Game is Being Played Nightly: Jerry and Marie Hart, the invention of ‘stage netball’, and serendipity.
The Jūjutsu Waltz: The stories of the men and women who brought jūjutsu to the Edwardian stage, subverting traditional male and female roles in the process.
Lucius Banks Jr, American football quarterback and English Rugby League threequarter. Athletic News, 25 March 1912. Image created by British Library Board. No known copyright holder.
Olympia Roller Skating Rink, Wakefield. Postcard, author's own collection.
Frank Craig. The Sphere, 26 June 1901. No known copyright holder.
Stage Netball. Black and White magazine, 1900. Image created by the British Library Board. No known copyright holder.
Gaby Deslys and Suyekichi Iida, The Jujutsu Waltz, 1907. Photograph by Bassano Ltd. National Portrait Gallery. Creative Commons Licence. https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw206402/