Baseball Images – A Window Into America’s National Identity

Baseball images provide a window into America’s national identity and the way in which sports reflect society. The game of baseball is unique among the major sports because it was founded not by Europeans and adapted from a children’s sport but was created in the United States as “America’s national sport.” This nationalism has given baseball enormous integrative powers and served to soothe American angst about the nation’s fractured racial, social, and cultural fabric. Baseball has also been a barometer of the fabled melting pot as it has attracted people from many regions and ethnic groups.

Library of Congress staff selected the photos in this collection from a variety of files and collections within the Prints and Photographs Division. They were chosen for showing interesting games, a wide range of teams and different pictorial formats, and to give an overview of the 1860s to 1920s period when the game was first developing as a national institution.

The majority of the images are photographs but there are a few prints and lithographs included as well. In cases where the picture does not carry a caption, or if the original caption is lost, a title was devised by library staff based on a variety of sources, including the image itself, a newspaper account, and/or other information.

Teamwork is an integral part of the game of baseball and its success depends on the players working together. Hence the many pictures of men in uniforms huddled around a coach or discussing strategy.