| dc.description.abstract | During the 1920s and 1930s, the city of Fort Worth was in the process of changing its identity from the hub of the cattle trade to an industrial city. It was growing in geographic size, population, and influence in the state of Texas, and was vying for recognition as one of the state's major cities alongside Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. During this time, Fort Worth was also experiencing the beginning stages of urban minority growth, and the white population in the city embraced racist social norms and segregation to combat the emergence of larger black and Hispanic populations that developed alongside the growth of economic opportunities in the city. Thus, in the 1920s and 1930s, there were three different Fort Worths - one black, one white, and one Hispanic - where people belonging to these communities lived their lived different lives within the same city. At the center of each of these separate Fort Worths was baseball. Baseball reflected the city's evolving identity. The success and popularity of the Fort Worth Panthers baseball team attracted regional and national attention that was essential for the city's emerging identity as a major Texas city. However, baseball also reflected the negative side of the city's past that divided communities within the city. In many ways, baseball reinforced segregation and racism in the city, requiring members of the black and Hispanic communities to form their own teams and play their own game. In Fort Worth, baseball was a tool that could build, unite, and divide communities within the city. It was a game that the black, white, and Hispanic communities all played and had in common. Yet, baseball also reinforced racist social standards and encouraged division. This thesis seeks to discuss the ways in which baseball contributed to the growth of Fort Worth's civic identity on a regional and national scale, while simultaneously strengthening the racial divisions that existed between subcommunities in the city during the Interwar Period. | |
