Awards

• Commended for OAH Frederick Jackson Turner Award 2015
• Nominated for Francis B. Simkins Award 2015
• Nominated for Lawrence W. Levine Award 2015
• Nominated for NASSH Book Award 2015

Overview

Race Horse Men recaptures the vivid sights, sensations, and illusions of nineteenth-century thoroughbred racing, America's first mass spectator sport. Inviting readers into the pageantry of the racetrack, Katherine C. Mooney conveys the sport's inherent drama while also revealing the significant intersections between horse racing and another quintessential institution of the antebellum South: slavery. A popular pastime across American society, horse racing was most closely identified with an elite class of southern owners who bred horses and bet large sums of money on these spirited animals. The central characters in this story are not privileged whites, however, but the black jockeys, grooms, and horse trainers who sometimes called themselves race horse men and who made the racetrack run. Mooney describes a world of patriarchal privilege and social prestige where blacks as well as whites could achieve status and recognition and where favored slaves endured an unusual form of bondage. For wealthy white men, the racetrack illustrated their cherished visions of a harmonious, modern society based on human slavery. After emancipation, a number of black horsemen went on to become sports celebrities, their success a potential threat to white supremacy and a source of pride for African Americans. The rise of Jim Crow in the early twentieth century drove many horsemen from their jobs, with devastating consequences for them and their families. Mooney illuminates the role these too-often-forgotten men played in Americans' continuing struggle to define the meaning of freedom.

Full Product Details

9780674281424

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Reviews

Black men were active in 19th-century racing, most prominent in the South, as jockeys, grooms, and trainers for this first large spectator sport in the United States But Mooney shows how white resentment of black presence and success at the race track increased. Whites feared that the example of success that these race-horse men set would incite other blacks to demand more rights and become violent. With the rise of Jim Crow in the South, blacks were driven out of the sport.--Patsy Gray Library Journal (03/15/2014)

Katherine Mooney leads us inside the paddock and beyond the finish line to reveal how horse racing shaped American society and molded race relations. In doing so, she brings to life the struggles of numerous individuals long lost to history. The result is an eye-opening and important book.--Louis P. Masur, author of Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union

Author Information

Katherine C. Mooney is Assistant Professor of History at Florida State University.

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