The Nature of Play: Biomedical Science and the Battle Over Segregated Recreation in Washington, D.C., 1942-1954

Time: 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM

Location: Room 435, Floor 4, Claire Fagin Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Abstract: The talk examines the use of scientific arguments to defend or contest racial segregation at recreational facilities in the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on public parks, neighborhood playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts, and golf courses in Washington, D.C., the paper asks why both segregationists and civil rights activists bolstered their positions with biomedical data and analyses and, more broadly, why recreational sites became critical venues in the struggle for social justice. The paper concludes with recent examples of racial discrimination in recreation, including a Philadelphia swim club in 2009.

Bio: Martha H. Verbrugge taught the history of science, medicine, and public health at Bucknell University for 37 years and is now Presidential Professor Emerita. An expert on the history of popular health and physical activity in the United States, she is the author of Active Bodies: A History of Women's Physical Education in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford UP, 2012), and Able-Bodied Womanhood: Personal Health and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Boston (Oxford UP, 1988). Her research has been supported by the National Library of Medicine, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, and Spencer Foundation, among others. Today's talk is based on her new project about the science and politics of race and recreation in twentieth-century America.