(BASEBALL) | Promotional brochure for a touring team of "Bloomer Girls": The Young Ladies' Athletic Journal, 1889

Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection

(BASEBALL)

Promotional brochure for a touring team of "Bloomer Girls": The Young Ladies' Athletic Journal, 1889

4to, 4 pages (14 x 10 1/8 in.; 354 x 257 mm) on a bifolium of pink laid paper. Repeated woodcut vignette of a Bloomer Girl at bat; some marginal chipping, several small holes costing a few letters. The consignor has independently obtained a letter of authenticity from PSA that will accompany the lot.

"The Belles of the Bat," predating the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League depicted in A League of Their Own by more than five decades. A very scarce promotional brochure for the Young Ladies' Athletic Club, a women's baseball team that barnstormed the nation taking on all comers. This brochure prints accounts of past games, testimonials to the ability and character of the players, and the team's incredible travel schedule, which calls for them to play twenty games in the span of a month across Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

The brochure seems intended to solicit local advertising from stops across the tour for game programs and scorecards. "Immense Crowds Everywhere!," trumpets the copy; "Draws As Many People As A Circus … Perhaps the Only Chance in a Lifetime to See the Champion Lady Ball Players of the World."