Document Type
Honors Project
Abstract
This honors thesis argues that football is a location of leisure which reinforces and (re)creates a comforting white male supremacist American empire through its use of imaginary frontiers, distortion of Native imagery and culture, and its development of mythic cowboy-heroes— which serve as escapes from ubiquitous national anxieties. I use textual and visual analysis of primary sources from the 1890s, 1920s, and 1970s to describe how football developed as a comforting space of leisure for white people in the face of national crises of masculinity, rights movements, and disillusionment with America’s empire.
Recommended Citation
Denehy, Lily B., "Creating Cowboys and “Playing Indian”: Football and White Supremacy from 1890-1980" (2022). History Honors Projects. 32.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/32
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Comments
Advisor: Dr. Katrina Phillips, History Department