Harriet Goodwill Spalding: Baseball's Pioneering Woman

Harriet Goodwill SpaldingBaseball's Pioneering Woman Keith Spalding Robbins (bio) The rise of women in leadership roles is one of the more inspiring stories in contemporary Major League Baseball. This paper focuses on the first of such women, baseball's pioneer leading lady, Harriet Irene Spalding. Her efforts were focused on fostering the rise of professional, organized baseball and the creation of the first national sporting goods firm, both officially beginning in 1876. Much of Harriet's story can be found in her self-published memoir of 1910, Reminiscences: An Autobiography of Harriet Irene Spalding.1 As Queen Victoria guided the realm of the British Empire, in the former colonies' realm of baseball, widowed Harriet Goodwill Spalding was its matriarch. Harriet Irene Spalding's life spanned from 1821 to 1917.2 Like many women of that era, whose contributions and influence were inconsistently documented or not fully reported, many publications about the early game make no mention of her.3 Consistent with the mores of the era, she held no formal position within the Spalding Sporting Goods company nor with the Chicago National League Baseball Club, today's Cubs. Yet Harriet's endeavors in these organizations were significant; her roles and actions were vital to each institution's success. As a Victorian age woman Harriet successfully negotiated many of the issues facing modern single mothers. Her devotion and exemplary leadership are recorded in the Spalding Memorial Genealogy of 1897 which states: "widowed mother with constant devotion, wonderful strength of character and inspiring heroism filled the place of both father and mother to the little children left to her care."4 Those qualities are illustrated in her pioneering efforts to foster baseball as the national pastime. Against the advice of many experts, she encouraged her son to participate in baseball and her daughter in archery, and later on in other sports. She was involved in the beginning of the rise of the sporting goods industry. She was there with the ball players, providing a steadying influence [End Page 210] on their six-month long global journey. And finally, she was active in setting the stage for familial and corporate continuity. Harriet's life journey was marked with tragedy. Like many of the Victorian age she endured the premature deaths of many close family members, including her mother, stepmother and stepfather, two infant children, and two husbands—all before her fortieth birthday.5 She displayed the ability to remain calm, be pragmatic in dealing with calamites and tragedies, and once she discovered a workable tactic, she repeated such actions with the expectation of similar results. Harriet was born into a large extended nineteenth-century family; she had two older half-sisters, and as her mother was her father's second wife, three other siblings. Harriet developed a great sense of loyalty, steadfastness, and integrity from her mother. She remembered that her mother's life lessons were "to be kind and thoughtful to others, truthful and honest."6 Diligence and hard work were stressed. One of her mother's beatitudes that Harriet memorized was: Count that day lost whose low, descending sunViews from thy hand no worthy action done.7 At age nine, Harriet lost her mother, Ruth Tiffany Goodwill, due to injuries sustained in a carriage accident. On her deathbed, Harriet's mother's wish was to let her young daughter live with her sister, Lucinda.8 Aunt Lucinda's husband, Amos Wright, was in business with Ruth's brother, Lucius Tiffany. After Ruth's death, Harriet fulfilled her mother's desire, moving from the rural homestead outside Batavia to suburban Clarence, New York, with Aunt Lucinda and Uncle Amos. Harriet would live in Clarence for the next eight years. By all accounts she was loved and treated well. The daughterless couple spared little expense for their niece. The "stable and fancy dry goods" firm of Wright and Tiffany provided a good income.9 Later, Uncle Amos became an Assistant Justice in the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and Uncle Lucius, a banker.10 Despite their dotting, when Harriet turned eighteen, she was ready to explore the world, and took the first opportunity made available to her. Her first husband...

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