SCOUTING YESTERDAY | Women's baseball team's tour of state brought curiosity and controversy
This week in South Dakota history: May 16-22
The Boston Bloomers, a professional traveling women’s baseball team that took on local men’s clubs, went on a barnstorming tour of South Dakota 125 years ago this week.
Named for the 19th-century garments worn during play, the Bloomers were organized in 1893, and at the time they were the only women’s ball club in America, according to The State Democrat.
It was only seven years after the first intercollegiate baseball game in 1859 that the first women’s clubs were established, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
