The 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games and Anthropology Days

'The 1904 Olympic Games and Anthropology Days' were a pivotal point in the history of American anthropology and of the Olympic Games. This is because they were anchored within larger transformations in global culture - namely, the decline of empire, the rise of the nation-state, and the ensuing decline of the Victorian evolutionary racial schemes. Anthropology Days reflected the notion of 'culture'; whilst the Olympic events and other sports reflected nation-building. But Anthropology Days were considered an embarrassment by Pierre de Coubertin - the founder of the modern Olympics. Because of their association with them, today's sport historians often regard the St. Louis Olympics as a shameful event which almost killed the Olympic Movement.St. Louis 1904 became a counter-model that sent the Olympic Games off onto another trajectory that emphasized a global sports mono-culture contested by athletes representing nations, and discouraged the cultural diversity of indigenous sports. As part of this shift, international sport was transformed from a carnivalistic spectacle into a serious ritual. The 'laughter of the pygmies' would no longer find a space in sport, which became a 'ritual of records'. This book was previously published as a special issue of "International Journal of the History of Sport".