ABSTRACT

We live in a "museum age," and sport museums are part of this phenomenon. In this book, leading international sport history scholars examine sport museums including renowned institutions like the Olympic Museum in the Swiss city of Lausanne, the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum in London, the Croke Park Museum in Dublin, and the Whyte Museum in Banff. These institutions are examined in a broad context of understanding sport museums as an identifiable genre in the "museum age", and more specifically in terms of how the sporting past is represented in these museums. Historians explain, debate and critique sport museums with the intention of understanding how this important form of public history represents sport for audiences who see museums as institutions that are inherently reliable and trustworthy.

chapter |26 pages

Introduction

Historians in Sport Museums

part I|61 pages

Making Meaning

chapter 1|20 pages

A Racehorse in the Museum

Phar Lap and the New Museology

chapter 2|17 pages

‘Beyond Sport Heroes' Celebration

On the Use of Sportswear for Sport History

chapter 3|23 pages

Not So Much a Sport Museum

The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

part II|51 pages

Corporate Museums

chapter 4|16 pages

Croke Park

Museum, Stadium and Shrine for the Nation

chapter 5|23 pages

Le Musée Olympique

Epicentre of Olympic Evangelism

chapter 6|11 pages

Renamed, Refurbished and Reconstructionist

Comparisons and Contrasts in Four London Sports Museums

part III|117 pages

Post-Museums

chapter 8|28 pages

Looking for the ‘Marvellous' in Baltimore

A Sport History Sojourn

chapter 9|27 pages

Bondi Park

Making, Practicing and Performing a Museum

chapter 10|18 pages

Lest We Forget

Public History and Racial Segregation in Baltimore's Druid Hill Park

chapter 11|10 pages

Conclusion