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Marble Tournament Origins |
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Marble Tournament Origins |
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THE
ORIGINS AMERICAN MARBLE TOURNAMENT This piece is an on-going work, which is far from completion. The vast majority of what you will see on these pages is raw, primary research materials providing the reader with the historical record as it appears in the press of the day, from Akron, Ohio. While this material relates specifically to Akron, many of these articles and images were syndicated, appearing in roughly 40 newspapers from all corners of the United States. As such, the experience it portrays would not be dramatically different from that in any other city.
The intent of this research is to
expose the subject in all of its various forms, but will primarily focus
on The National Marbles Tournament. While these were not the first
organized marble tournaments held in the United States, they came very
early in the genre and The National Marbles Tournament is today the
oldest children’s sporting event in the United States. The
1923 Akron Press Marble Tournament The above link contains many of the newspaper articles and images that appeared in the 1923 Akron Press as part of their sponsorship and coverage of their first local marble tournament. They were written for the most part by a journalist named H.E. Bennett, under the by-line of The Marble Editor. Keep in mind this tournament was intended to increase the newspaper’s readership, obtain new subscriptions, increase paid advertisements and generally overwhelm the other two competing local newspapers, as well as make it the most people friendly newspaper around – that was a national strategy for the Scripps Howard Newspaper Syndicate. It was the most successful newspaper promotion in the history of American journalism. |
Akron Press - February 7, 1923, front page
Articles
and images appear courtesy of the E.W. Scripps Company and the Akron /
Summit County Public Library.
Who'll
Be the Champion in 1923? A Brief on American Marble Tournaments
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