1897

Today the word football summons forth images of gigantic, vigorous and fully televised athletes sporting protective padding while surrounded by enthusiastic fans and well-compensated cheerleaders; yet, one hundred years ago, that same word made one think of embalmers, tombstones and weeping mothers. Football’s popularity had been increasing since the 1870s, and by the end of the Nineteenth Century the sport had amassed a lengthy casualty list. Footballers continued to keep the American medical establishment and sundry funeral directors fully employed up to the year 1910, when helmets and padding were introduced with some success.

The attached article is from an 1897 issue of THE LITERARY DIGEST and it reported on a strong civic movement to ban the sport of football.

Click here if you would like to see three editorial cartoons denouncing football from the same era.

Here are three forceful gags from 1897 in which the cartoonists clearly indicated a desire that football be banned from the all colleges, if not made illegal throughout the entire nation.