Women’s Football (Soccer) over 135 Years Ago

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

(Ed. Note: This is the first in a series of posts about articles and illustrations originally published over a century ago, depicting a burgeoning American sports scene and a keen interest in women’s physical fitness. Although often sexist by modern standards, the posts are indicative of their era and provide the social context for the limitations imposed upon athletic women of that period.)

Women's Football (Soccer) Media Reports - 1869-1876

August 28, 1869, Saturday

May 29, 1873, Thursday - The Paxton Weekly Record, Illinois

Boston girls play foot-ball and find it better for the show of pretty ankles and striped stockings than croquet.

June 8, 1873, Sunday - Galveston Daily News, Texas

Football, according to the newspapers, is becoming a popular game with young ladies all over the country. Boston girls claim to be the most skillful. The education of girls in this country is not what it should be. It is too feminine, lacking the robustness which characterizes the training of girls in Europe.

December 10, 1874, Thursday – Nevada State Journal, Nevada

The girls of Vassar College play football, and many a young man thereabouts wishes he were a football, especially as the girls sometimes miss the ball and land on their heads in the grass. It must be an inspiring sight, too, to see the girls engaged in this important study, and if they were to charge fifty cents admission the gate money would be more than enough to pay for their education.

May 15, 1876, Monday - Freeborn County Standard, Minnesota

The girls at the Washington Seminary in Wheeling, West Virginia, play foot ball on the grounds at the rear of the institution. They kick the ball and cry “hail” as loud as the boys. A neatly written, girlish looking challenge was on the bulletin board at college offering to play a match game of football one afternoon in the Seminary yard. The freshmen were afraid to accept and have incurred the disgust of every one in consequence.

From “Daughters of the Lost Century”

View LostCentury's Profile

Support women's sports and SHARE this story with your friends!

• Football
• Soccer
• Sports
• SportsPLUS
• Sexism
• Research
• History

This post is related to an ongoing story:

• The Lost Century

View Original Post at womentalksports.com | View LostCentury's Full Profile