The Case:
A pair of sports tickets from 1927 are discovered in a used book.
The tickets are for a basketball game featuring Jim Thorpe, the legendary Native American athlete who was known for his 1912 Olympic gold medals and Herculean strengths as a football and baseball player.
Thorpe’s sporting legend looms large, but is this ticket evidence of a chapter of his career almost completely forgotten by history... as a professional basketball player?
History Detectives goes to New York and Pennsylvania to investigate the life of a sports legend and uncover some harsh truths about racism in the sports world.
Related Content
Technique:
Feature:
Feature:
Feature:
Related Links
Explore
-
Also with Wes Cowan
Confederate Eyeglass
Is this how southern sympathizers identified each other during the Civil War?
-
Also in Emerging Modern America: 1890-1930
Crazy Horse Photo
Is this the only photograph of a Native American legend?
-
Related Investigation
Pop Lloyd Baseball Field
Why was this baseball field named after an African-American ballplayer in a time of racial tension?
-
Also with Wes Cowan
Ernie Pyle's Typewriter
Did America’s most beloved battlefront correspondent bang out his dispatches on this Corona 3?
-
Also in Emerging Modern America: 1890-1930
Spybook
What does this little black book reveal about spying on the home front during World War I?
-
Also in Emerging Modern America: 1890-1930
Black Tom Shell
Is this shell from a devastating act of foreign sabotage on American soil?
Comments
This is a place for opinions, comments, questions and discussion; a place where viewers of History Detectives can express their points of view and connect with others who value history. We ask that posters be polite and respectful of all opinions. History Detectives reserves the right to delete comments that don’t conform to this conduct. We will not respond to every post, but will do our best to answer specific questions, or address an error.