Pedestriennes: Newsworthy but Controversial Women in Sporting Entertainment* By Dahn Shaulis DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS In the nineteenth century, hundreds of women performed professional feats of strength and endurance. Endurance walkers and runners known as pedestriennes were particularly newsworthy, gaining metropolitan newspaper coverage in Britain and North America from the mid-1870s to the late 1880s. By the early twentieth century, however, historical recognition of these women was scarce. 1 Popular accounts of pedestrienne performances surfaced in the 1960s and 1970s, yet these women have received minimal scholarly attention. 2 Some sport histories do not even acknowledge women’s participation in pedestrianism. 3 Others have recorded their performances as a single incident or a short-lived fad. 4 Contemporary texts that analyze women’s roles in sport relegate the efforts of the pedestriennes to a few sentences. 5 Some histories briefly acknowledge the athletic endurance and significance of these women but include few if any sources. 6 Two sources recognize a history of women’s footraces in England, but suggest that the phenomenon had died out by the mid-nineteenth century. 7 An overriding thesis in at least two other sources is that the pedestriennes were brazen entertainers violating Victorian moral standards who made little contribution, or even a negative contribution, to women’s sport. 8 In contrast to past accounts, this essay portrays women’s footracing as an international phenomenon involving women of several nationalities and ethnic groups, with thread leading from medieval smock races to late-twentieth-century professional sports. 9 It is argued here that the pedestriennes were not universally marginalized during their era, nor was their form of entertainment short-lived. Some consciously strove for and for a time enjoyed a certain legitimacy despite relentless pressure to marginalize them. Their eventual marginalization, however, is significant because it allowed groups to continue to restrict women’s activities. Spring 1999 29