Idealized Middle-Class Sport for a Young Nation: Lacrosse in Nineteenth-Century Ontario Towns, 1871-1891

Late nineteenth-century amateur sport was one forum where middle-class men struggled to establish a cultural hegemony. The development of amateur lacrosse in the small southwestern Ontario towns of Ingersoll and Woodstock, between 1871and 1891, shows that local middle-class sport reformers used lacrosse to make their vision of reality credible, and to contribute to the formulation of a broader Canadian culture which would buttress their image …