Women's Baseball Team Postcard -Need Joann's Help

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Do you know anything of this team?

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Posted By: Joann

Hi Dan,

I am familiar with it and have a copy too. It shows up somewhat regularly on ebay. Not as often as the Watervliet Western Bloomer Girls PC, but this one is maybe second or third in terms of how often I see it.

I don't know anything about the team and haven't found anything doing the very superficial google-type research. I keep watching on ebay to see if one comes up that is postally used. I know it's not a slam dunk or anything, but I figure for local team PC's like this (one of the best ways to get images of female players and teams)they probably were only sold in or near the town where the team played. If a card is postally used, chances are that the postmark is from somewhere near where they played.

I know it's not bullet-proof logic, but it would help me narrow down geography a bit. That's how I know that one of my cards is from Lone Rock Wisc - from the postmark and message on back.

If I see one on ebay that is postally used, I plan on picking it up just so I have that piece of it. One day, after I'm out of school, I have this crazy idea that I will have time to more thoroughly research all of the PC's, cabinets, photos, etc that I have of female teams.

Sorry I couldn't be more help Dan.

J

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Thanks Joann. Mine is not postally used, but someone wrote '1910' on the back. I couldn't find anything with the Google machine either.

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Posted By: dennis

please tell me that there are at least 3 men in that picture.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Definitely 3...maybe 4.

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Posted By: dennis

thanks dan, i was hoping for that answer. the girl in the middle looks like an early 1900's rosie o'donnel

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Posted By: leon

Rosie is a guy, I am pretty sure. That makes 5 in this picture....

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Posted By: dennis

leon if you had the right answer this could have been the dec. net 54 contest question. how many females are in this picture?

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Posted By: Vincent

If memory of something I once read, serves me right, didn't Joe Wood, as well as Wahoo Sam Crawford put in playing with a women's team or two, before their major league days ?

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joe Wood played for one of the Star Bloomer Girls teams...not sure which one. I've not heard that Sam Crawford played on a girls team, but he did pitch a game or two for the Nebraska Indians against the U of Nebraska.

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Posted By: Shawn Chambers

Curious photo...

It looks to me like the entire middle row is men...maybe why they are "hiding" their big man hands?

Also, on my monitor the heads look trimmed and "pasted" onto the bodies. The heads (especially the middle row) don't look in scale with the bodies to me.
Am I alone in this??

Interesting, though...

Shawn

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Shawn, I hadn't really even noticed that until you mentioned it, but some of those heads do look out of proportion to the bodies and could have been a "cut-n-paste" job...especially second from left in the middle row. Just doesn't look right.

I believe there are only 4 men pictured. Far left standing, Middle standing, Far right standing and far right seated in the middle row.

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Posted By: Shawn Chambers

Good, at least I'm not totally crazy!

I think the three in the middle of the middle row and the two players "reclining" in front are all pasted head jobs.

Now, the real question...why was it necessary to do this? To "update" the team? I wonder if Joann's is TOTALLY identical or maybe with a different head somewhere...wouldn't that me neat!

Shawn

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joann, I have done a little research and have found that this Hopkins brothers team was a team put together by Hopkins Brothers Sporting Goods out of Kansas City and Des Moines. Hopkins Brothers was more notable for sponsoring the All Nations baseball club which comprised players of many nationalities and included women too. From what I have read they barnstormed in the teens and went from town to town by train living in tents on the ballfields much the same way the Nebraska Indian team did.



I think I may have found a new tangent for my collecting focus.

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Posted By: Joann

First, now that people have mentioned it the appearance of the heads do seem disportionate to the bodies. It's almost creepy. The faces on my card are identical to Dan's, so it doesn't appear that they were making different versions of the card as the players changed. Either that or Dan and I got the same version.





Dan I'm curious as to how you came across this. On the card side you said you were actually looking up something else and stumbled across it, but can you add any detail? Were you looking strictly online or also going to local libraries, calling newspapers for archives or anything like that?

Also, now that your research trail got you to where you found this card, can you reconstruct how you might have started with only this card and gotten to the point of finding this guy and the Nationals team? Kind of like reverse-engineering the research path, I guess is what I'm asking. Or was that a one-way flow of information that you couldn't have found if you started only with the female bb card?

One of these days I'm going to try to look at a lot of the female player cards I have, and I don't have a good idea of how to even start. So any insight as to how you got from Point A to Point B in this case would be very appreciated.

Joann

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joann, I was researching the "All Nations" team on Google and I ran across this website:

http://www.sff.net/people/michaeljasper/AllNations.htm

That was my first stop...after reading about that interesting incident which by all accounts seems to have been the downfall of the All Nations team I took a closer look at the photo and was astounded to see the two women in the front row wearing "Hopkins Bros" uniforms...I quickly went and grabbed my postcard and immediately you can tell the two women in the website photo are also in the postcard. I believe that one of those women went by the moniker of "Carrie Nation" while playing on the All Nations team. Anyway in that online article it mentions "J.L.", but no last name so I googled up some more info on the All Nations team and found that "J.L." was none other than JL Wilkinson who had just been elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006...tried to find some pics and when I did I could see the match so I went to my Negro League Encyclopedia here at home and found that he got his start in baseball with an all womens team in Des Moines, IA...home of Hopkins Bros Sporting Goods.

So as you can see it was just dumb luck that I stumbled across the information. I'm not done researching this so now that I've found my lead this should be much easier to find out more about this team and perhaps more about the female player named "Carrie Nation". There used to be a poster that posted to Net54 that collected Des Moines baseball items (Craig) but I haven't seen him around for about 6-12 months now.

edited to add: I don't think the postcard has been altered...looking at both team photos it appears the women with the large head is in both photos and you can see she just really does have a large head.

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Posted By: Clint

Dan, this was a fairly easy to obtain postcard. I think that after your research it may become a lot more expensive to buy. Great research, that's the part of this hobby I like the best.

Thanks for sharing Dan.

Clint

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

What you guys don't know is that I've already hoarded about 50 of these cards.

just kidding....wish I did have that many though.

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Posted By: Joann

Wow Dan - great story on getting to the mystery. I also think it's cool that Hopkins Bros is still in business, according to someone upthread.

So are you going to focus on All Nation's items? What a great concept this guy had. He was definitely a progressive thinker - what with a female bb team, the All Nations concept and then being pivotal to the Negro League.

J

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joann, I'm not exactly sure what direction I'm going...I sort of like barnstorming teams and the items that go along with them. I don't think there is a whole lot of All-Nations items out there though. I may try to go after some of the House of David postcards...seem plentiful and cheap and I don't know much about them at the moment....I may also try to go after some of the womens team postcards, but I'll email you first to see what your interest is in an item (if you don't mind) as I don't want to step on your toes and I'd rather you have something for your collection first in that area.

Of course I'm still going after the Nebraska Indians items too, but as of right now there are only two postcards and one cabinet photo that I don't have. Anything else that pops up in that area will have been unknown to me.

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Posted By: 1880nonsports

but you asked for Joann ....... I didn't have any idea about the All Nations connection though. Terrific share - thanks.

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Posted By: Ken W.

Hi Joanne and Dan,
It looks to me like some of the women in the Hopkins Brothers PC are also in the Watervliet Western Bloomers PC (below). Could the man in the suit also be J.L Wilkinson? I guess this team was from Michigan, so perhaps not. But at least a couple of the women look very similar.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

It's not Wilkinson as there is no account that he ever left Des Moines before heading to KC, but some of those women look to be the same gals. I'm betting that when JL broke up his women's team to form the All Nations team some of the women went on to other professional teams. This seems to be a very unexplored area of study and most accounts of JL Wilkinson's life either don't even mention the Hopkins team or it gets just a passing note.

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Posted By: Joann

Ken,

That Western Bloomer card may very well include some of the same girls and may be from the same general area as the Hopkins PC.

I read once (not sure where and can't seem to find it again) that there were several teams called "Western Bloomer" just as there may have been more than one "Star Bloomer" team. It may even have been a league. Maud Nelson (later Maud Olson) founded the Western Bloomers in Watervliet Mich, but if there were other teams using that name or if the term was loosely used to describe a league or any female barnstorming team, then the team in the photo may not have been located in Michigan.

Interestingly, Maud Olson's second (?) husband, John Olson, owned another barnstorming team of Native Americans called the Cherokee Indian Base Ball Club. Maud may even have played for this team briefly before founding the Western Bloomers.

And Dan - it is very kind of you to say that you don't want me to keep me from getting something for my collection. I have to say my passion for this area is increasing, and if I had the means I think I would literally buy each and every thing I see. (As it is, I am probably buying somewhere around 60% or more of what I see!)

But I don't want to keep someone else from getting things either. At the very least, we should probably touch base to whatever extent we need to to make sure we aren't beating the hell out of one another on auctions and price!

J

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Joann, I have enough to go after that I would never step on your toes...I know your ebay ID so I can see when you've bid on an item, but I will still let you know when I have interest in an item just please don't ever tell me that I can have something if you really want (need) it for your collection as I am only considering women's baseball cards as a sideline to my barnstorming collection...my focus still remains the Nebraska Indians.