Daughters of the Lost Century is an action-packed pictorial anthology of women's sports featuring more than 100 rare articles and 1,000 lively illustrations originally published between 1849 and 1909, an overlooked era of American sports history.

This fascinating compilation from "The Lost Century of Sports Collection" provides valuable insight about the origins and development of women's sports during the Victorian era and the social ramifications of the athletic New Woman as reported by the media at the time. The subject is enlivened by the vibrant energy of the women athletes in the illustrations, the sheer vastness of the collection, and the surprising variety of sports engaged in during an epoch better known for hoop skirts than for shooting hoops.

Such overwhelming evidence of robust athleticism shatters our modern genteel stereotype of women of the 19th century. Primary sources include Harper's Weekly, Leslie's Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Outing, Munsey's Magazine, Woman's Physical Development, The Illustrated London News, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The San Francisco Call, and dozens of other periodicals. Many of the articles were written by women.

This entertaining and educational volume of historical treasures is a must for every library, an essential resource for women's studies, and an ideal gift book for athletes, students, and art lovers. These contemporary published accounts reveal a passion for play and a desire for physical fitness common to women of today.

The brief initial bloom of women's sports at the end of the 19th century, and the "unladylike" competitive zeal of the athletes as reported in sensationalized press accounts, prompted a social backlash that led to restricting female participation in sports for generations, until the passage of Title IX in 1972.

A common thread in many articles from the earliest fitness magazines is the role of diet, exercise and sports in relation to physical beauty and the concept of femininity, a twining still evident in today's most popular women's fitness publications.

The volume includes significant sections on the first flourishing of women's college basketball, the barnstorming baseball bloomer girls, the bicycle revolution, physical training, swimming, gymnastics, and two foundational books: Catharine Beecher's 1856 classic "Calisthenic Exercises, for Schools, Families, and Health Establishments," and Lucille Hill's groundbreaking 1903 work, "Athletics and Out-door Sports for Women."

Among the many sports covered in this volume are bowling, volleyball, softball, track & field, ice skating, roller skating, skiing, ice hockey, football, fencing, archery, billiards, rowing, golf, tennis, dancing, and equestrian sports. This volume reveals and preserves the proud forgotten heritage of American women's sports.

About the Author: The Lost Century of Sports Collection publishes time capsules from the birth of American sports in the 19th century.

Football books in The Lost Century of Sports Collection are:

1. The Lost Century of American Football: Reports from the Birth of a Game, 1801-1900

2. The American Football Trilogy: The Founding Documents of the Gridiron Game, Written by 3 Hall of Fame Coaches and the Man Who Invented the Flying Wedge

3. Classic Football Art: Hundreds of Illustrations Originally Published in 19th Century Newspapers

4. The First Crusade Against Football: Injuries, Brutality and Death in American Football from Bloody Monday to the Flying Wedge: Media Reports from 1827 to 1898

5. The First Decade of College Football: Published Reports of American Football, 1869-1879

6. Walter Camp in Print: A Portfolio of Rare Articles by the First Football Coach and Father of the American Game, 1884-1894

7. Football Linemen: The Center, Tackle & Ends, 1891-1893

Other books in The Lost Century of Sport Collection include:

8. Daughters of the Lost Century: The Playful Pioneers of American Women's Sports & Fitness, 1849-1909

9. The First Decade of Women's Basketball: A Time Capsule of Media Reports from the Dawn of the Game, 1892-1905

10. The Mysterious Birth of the Curve Ball and the Art of Pitching: Media Reports from 1869 to 1921

11. A Gallery of Dogs in the 19th Century

12. The White House Billiard Table Scandal: Excerpts of American Political Discourse during the era of Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams (ebook)