14 The NFL National Anthem Protests Ferris, Marc. 2014. Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America’s National Anthem. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. New York Times Company. 1918. “Red Sox Beat Cubs in Initial Battle of World Series.” New York Times, September 6, 1918. https://timesmachine .nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/09/06/97025138.pdf Thorn, John. 2017. “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Our Game, May 23, 2017. https:// ourgame.mlblogs.com/the-star-spangled-banner-2689d0a030e4 The United States World War I Centennial Commission. 2018. “The Star Spangled Banner and World War One.” www.worldwar1centennial.org, 2018. https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/educate/places/the-star -spangled-banner-and-world-war-one.html Waxman, Olivia. 2017. “Here’s How Standing for the National Anthem Became Part of U.S. Sports Tradition.” Time, September 25, 2017. http://time.com/ 4955623/history-national-anthem-sports-nfl/ “The Star-Spangled Banner” Becomes the National Anthem (1931) Although there was no official national anthem in the United States throughout the nineteenth century, a number of patriotic and popular tunes functioned informally in that role. One such song was “America the Beautiful,” written by Katherine Lee Bates, an English teacher who wrote it after climbing Colorado’s Pike’s Peak, inspired by the area’s natu- ral beauty. An early ditty from the eighteenth century, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” initially featured lyrics written by Dr. Richard Shuckburgh, a British army surgeon, to mock colonial troops during the pre- Revolutionary War period, but American soldiers proudly adopted the tune to taunt the British, performing it at parades and political rallies. Another patriotic song played frequently at public events was “My Coun- try ’Tis of Thee,” a song written by Reverend Samuel Francis Smith in 1831. Another song, with lyrics written by Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1861), was prevalent as a Union rallying song during the Civil War, which made the song divisive in the South even long after the war ended. Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” (1814) was also a favorite patriotic tune during the nineteenth century. It was a popular song for ral- lies and holiday parties during the Civil War and World War I and gradu- ally came to be considered the informal anthem of the U.S. military. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the song be played during official military events. When the American public turned its attention to choosing an official anthem for the nation, “The Star-Spangled Banner” seemed to be a good candidate.
Previous Page Next Page