Design and Culture

DESIGNS FOR AN EXTENDED ADOLESCENCE

THE OCCUPATIONAL ANXIETIES and delayed maturity of the “millennial” generation coming of age after the recession of 2008 seem exceptional when compared to the continued progress of the post-World War II generations, but the alienation of young Americans due to financial and technological change is not a new story. In this investigation I propose to show that one of the ways that young working-class New Englanders in the evolving occupations of industrial cities at the turn of the twentieth century dealt with similar anxiety was by participating in sports related leisure.

I will show that entrepreneurs in New England mill towns developed sports-related business models to serve the social needs of young people during a recently extended period between childhood and marriage. A new sense of ownership over leisure time led to greater participation in activities such as bicycling and canoeing among these adventurous young men and women.

The essay will build upon the relationship between leisure and class conflict identified by Kathy Peiss in her book Cheap Amusements:   Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York,1  and Roy Rosenzweig in his book Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers & Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920.2 I will expand the understanding of working-class leisure by demonstrating that the form of commercialized sporting developed by entrepreneurs in Waltham related to the production methods of the local factories and the geography and infrastructure of the town. Whereas Peiss’ study of the large city of New York focused on anonymity and the separation between work and leisure life, I will demonstrate that in smaller industrial cities a close relationship developed between the manufacturing businesses and the entrepreneurs who provided leisure services. Rosenzweig’s book focuses on class conflict between management and city leaders and the working class and how leisure was a means for the workers to subvert oppressive power structures. I I will show that the relationship among the classes facilitated by sporting leisure could also be more positive, acting as a means of relieving some of the stresses of industrial life.

Using canoe businesses as an example, I will argue that the owners of these businesses were connected with the factories and were therefore able to produce forms of commercialized leisure tailored to meet the social needs of the mill and factory workers. Sporting               business owners aligned their interests with the working class, supporting them in escaping from Victorian norms of sexuality in the 1890s and first decades of the 20th century. As evidence I will investigate the material culture of the city – the landscapes, factories, and surviving artifacts to reconstruct the social milieu of outdoor sporting in the period, highlighting connections among workers in the factories, leisure service entrepreneurs, and industry leadership. Primary resources will be drawn from the business records and local newspapers and oral histories. Statistical and genealogical sources will be used to establishing links among citizens and workers.