Abstract
This paper analyzes the symbiotic relationship between Babe Didrikson Zaharias and the sports media, how the media exploited this relationship to portray Zaharias within the context of the period’s popular American ideals on gender, sexuality, and womanhood, and simultaneously illustrates how this exploitation correlated with Babe’s re-creation of herself into the more socially accepted athlete she became toward the end of her career. Drawing from newspapers and periodicals of the time, the paper explores the context of American society during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s toward women in sports and how this context was framed by the sporting press to reveal that Babe was both a contradiction and, in the end, a product of her society, both fascinating and alarming in her portrayals by the popular media. From her early experiences in basketball and track and field to her domination of golf during the peak and latter parts of her athletic career, Zaharias used the press in order to promote herself as the greatest woman athlete of all time by constantly making herself available to them. In turn, the sport writers used Babe in order to make a profit, promote themselves, and foster public intrigue. Babe’s ascent to the pinnacle of the sports world was preceded by the decade of the “Golden Age of Sports” in which sports solidified into an integral part of American consumer society, becoming an indispensable part of the daily newspaper. This helped to set the stage for Babe’s emergence as a prominent woman athlete during the 1930s and her complex relationship with the media. Critical research regarding women athletes and the media has been minimal to this point, making this examination significant to the understanding and education of an overlooked aspect in the history of women’s participation in sports.