Sporting goals and economic constraints: the evolution of boxing equipment in Europe and the USA during the Belle Époque and the Roaring Twenties
Hadjeras, Stéphane
Sporting goals and economic constraints: the evolution of boxing equipment in Europe and the USA during the Belle Époque and the Roaring Twenties - 2022.
66
In the first quarter of the 20th century, and particularly before the First World War, English boxing was one of the most popular sports to watch in the Western world. The practice of boxing was considered both aesthetic and brutal, as it glorified both the body and the ideal of physical regeneration. It attracted interest from all classes of society, from the elite, in particular artists, to the working class. Somewhere between a noble art and a sport of brute force, boxing mirrored the contradictions of the Belle Époque that Italian historian Emilio Gentile described as existing between “triumphant modernity” and “barbarism of splendor”.This article outlines the history of the boxing equipment market with three objectives. It evaluates the development of the market for boxing clothes within the broader context of the rapidly growing sports equipment market. It analyses the nature of a sport that combines clothing, commercial entertainment and agonistic spectacle with a potentially tragic outcome. Finally, it examines the triumph of boxing in the United States and parts of Europe and questions its role within a “culture of aggression” that, like the success of aerial and automobile sports, presaged the violence of the First World War.
Sporting goals and economic constraints: the evolution of boxing equipment in Europe and the USA during the Belle Époque and the Roaring Twenties - 2022.
66
In the first quarter of the 20th century, and particularly before the First World War, English boxing was one of the most popular sports to watch in the Western world. The practice of boxing was considered both aesthetic and brutal, as it glorified both the body and the ideal of physical regeneration. It attracted interest from all classes of society, from the elite, in particular artists, to the working class. Somewhere between a noble art and a sport of brute force, boxing mirrored the contradictions of the Belle Époque that Italian historian Emilio Gentile described as existing between “triumphant modernity” and “barbarism of splendor”.This article outlines the history of the boxing equipment market with three objectives. It evaluates the development of the market for boxing clothes within the broader context of the rapidly growing sports equipment market. It analyses the nature of a sport that combines clothing, commercial entertainment and agonistic spectacle with a potentially tragic outcome. Finally, it examines the triumph of boxing in the United States and parts of Europe and questions its role within a “culture of aggression” that, like the success of aerial and automobile sports, presaged the violence of the First World War.
Réseaux sociaux