Yachting and Polo: Gentlemen's Sports

Sports and Wealth.

During the 1920s the upper classes saw their control of American sports culture slip away. In the nineteenth century the wealthy had dictated both the type and tone of respectable athletic events, embracing such sports as cricket, track and field, golf, and lawn tennis. The principles of amateurism dominated, and sports were viewed as a means of protecting social status and instilling desired values in the young. After World War I, however, as athletic events attracted increasingly large audiences and began, in some cases, to feature professional stars, the influence of amateurism faded. Golf and lawn tennis—once played only by the affluent on their estates and at summer resorts—became middle-class pastimes and began to attract followings as professional sports.

Polo.

Polo had first been played in the United States in the 1880s, but its popularity among the wealthy increased greatly during the...

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