Boxing

Boxing. Prizefighting began in England, where by the late eighteenth century it was acknowledged as the “national sport” but was also illegal. Boxers fought with bare knuckles, most forms of wrestling and hitting were permitted, and fights lasted until one or both contestants quit or could not continue. Tom Molineaux, a free black, was the first great American fighter. In two matches in England in 1810 and 1811, Molineaux came close to defeating the English champion Tom Cribb. Becoming famous in England, Molineaux remained virtually unknown to Americans, who initially showed little interest in the prize ring. This changed in the mid–nineteenth century as a modern working class, including many immigrants from England and Ireland, arose in American cities. A series of matches culminated with an 1849 championship fight, tinged with ethnic antipathy, between James “Yankee” Sullivan, an Irish immigrant, and the native‐born Tom Hyer. Hyer's victory began a wave of spectacular fights in the 1850s. These illegal events—fighters and fans boarded steamboats and trains to stage battles beyond the reach of the law—received heavy newspaper coverage but were especially popular among working‐class men, who saw reflected in them their own rough‐cut masculine culture centered around saloons, political wards, and volunteer fire companies. Prizefighting declined after the Civil War, partly owing to fixed fights and fans' violence, but also because the middle class prosecuted fighters more vigilantly. But in the 1880s, Boston's John L. Sullivan (1858–1918) circumvented the laws against prizefighting by wearing gloves and adhering to the new Marquis of Queensberry rules that mandated three‐minute rounds and imposed other restrictions. Attracting a widening audience, Sullivan earned over one million dollars and became America's first great sports celebrity.

Boxing's modern era dates from 1892, when James J. Corbett (1866–1933), fighting under the Queensberry rules, defeated the aging Sullivan. Boxing now appealed to a broader spectrum of men seeking an elusive sense of masculinity in an era of economic change. Rapidly developing media—mass‐circulation newspapers, radio, and finally television—connected the sport to a growing cult of celebrity characteristic of consumer culture. Fighters like Jack Dempsey (1895–1983), who reigned as heavyweight champion through most of the 1920s, enjoyed enormous popularity.

Perhaps more than any other sport, boxing in the twentieth century developed a reputation as an ethnic ladder, as first the Irish, then Jews, Italians, African Americans, and Latinos gained prominence. But prizefighting was not, in fact, a major avenue of social mobility. Despite the occasional champion who amassed riches, most fighters came from extremely poor families, and they remained poor. Although boxing audiences included numerous well‐to‐do fans, the fighters themselves continued to come from socially oppressed or stigmatized groups. Nonetheless, great fighters were idolized by their people as exemplars of male toughness in a world where poverty was taken as a badge of masculine failure, so that African American champions like Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and Muhammad Ali were extremely influential in their day.
See also Gender; Immigration; Journalism; Popular Culture; Sports; Working‐Class Life and Culture.

Bibliography

Elliott J. Gorn , The Manly Art: Bare‐Knuckle Prize Fighting in America, 1986.
Jeffrey Sammons , Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society, 1988.

Elliot J. Gorn