Alec Hurley - Sport and microhistory in Rochester, NY

Sport in History Podcast

This episode features a paper given by Alec Hurley at the British Society of Sport History's Sport & Leisure History seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in London. Though sport clubs are universal, there exists – as nineteenth century French diplomat Alexis DeTocqueville claimed – a uniquely American disposition toward the formation of associations. This presentation will examine the role of nineteenth-century urban sports clubs through the nexus of place, space, and cultural identity. In doing so, I will bring together digital history, urban history, and local community histories to understand cultural relationships in a post-industrial city. Literature on smaller industrial areas, as opposed to large metropoles, remains underexamined. Roy Rosenzweig addressed that concern in his work on the labor history of immigrants in Worchester, Massachusetts, when he claimed, “the evidence from one medium-sized city can only resolve these questions in tentative ways.” He did, however, provide a caveat that if reliable data could be elicited from comparative cities, scholars could draw grander conclusions. My choice of location: Rochester, New York, fits the requirements for Rosenzweig’s comparative city. As such this presentation will explore how I used and continue to use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to demonstrate the interaction, evolution, and shifting impact that various ethnic communities had on the physical infrastructure and cultural development of Rochester. With a goal of expanding the research on a global scale, this presentation offers insight into the expansive and groundbreaking intersection of sport studies, the digital humanities, and multicultural narratives. Alec S. Hurley is an adjunct professor at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, NY, where he teaches courses across the sport humanities. This presentation is derived from his dissertation, which he completed in the summer of 2022 from the University of Texas at Austin under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Hunt. He has published and presented internationally on sport, cultural identity, and urban community.