Stanley Arnold

Current Research

My research interests are concentrated in two somewhat related areas: the civil rights movement in the United States from 1920 to 1970 (exclusive of the South) and the intersection of race and sports in the United States. As a historian, one of my goals is to link the study of the past to the relevance of today. My work in these two principal fields serves to illuminate many aspects of the contemporary American experience.

My current book project, Beacons of their Race: African Americans and the Olympic Movement, 1896-1948, explores the impact of African Americans on the early Olympic Games. Track and field was the most prestigious event of the nascent games, and the very participation of Black athletes constituted a victory in this period of unrelenting segregation. As these pioneers persevered, the Black community rallied around them. Since the majority of these early Olympians were college-educated, Black intellectuals envisioned them as exemplars of the classical fusion of body and mind. For these observers, Black Olympians were the true embodiment of the ancient Olympic spirit.

My first book, Building the Beloved Community: Philadelphia’s Interracial Civil Rights Movement and the Origins of Multiculturalism, 1930-1970 (University Press of Mississippi, 2014), examined the role of a locally-based interracial civil rights movement in an important northern metropolis. My work tells the stories of several organizations linked by an evolving philosophy. I argue that this movement, which incorporated elements of the Social Gospel movement, Progressivism, Quakerism, and early 20th-century theories on race, employed strategies that influenced the better-known southern civil rights movement and developed tactics that contributed to the emergence of multiculturalism.

Major Publications

Books

• Building the Beloved Community: Philadelphia’s Interracial Civil Rights Movement and the Origins of Multiculturalism. University Press of Mississippi, 2014.

Articles/Book Chapters

• "Alice Coachman and the Tuskegee Women's Track and Field Team" in Alabama Heritage, No. 145, Summer 2022.
• "The Depression and the New Deal," in If There is No Struggle, There is No Progress: Black Politics in Twentieth Century Philadelphia, edited by James Wolfinger (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University, 2022).
• "We Were Better Runners: African American Women and the Summer Olympics, 1932-1948" in Sports in African American Life: Essays on History and Culture, edited by Drew Brown (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2020).
• "Civil Rights (African American)" with James Wolfinger in Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, edited by Charlene Mires (Camden, NJ: Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities at Rutgers-Camden, 2017) digital media source.
• "The Rise of Black Professional Baseball in Philadelphia, 1860-1910," Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Baseball Review, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer 2005).
• "Birth of a Legend: Pre-Negro League Baseball, 1840-1920" in Encyclopedia of North American Sport, edited by Steven Riess (London: M.E. Sharpe, 2011).
• "The Philadelphia NAACP," in Invisible Philadelphia: History Through Voluntary Organization, edited by Jean Barth Toll and Margaret Gilliam. Atwater-Kent Museum, 1995.

Teaching Interests

My teaching duties are focused primarily on undergraduate and graduate instruction and advising. While one of my goals is to provide my students with historical content, I also equip them with the skills necessary to work in the discipline of history. In my classes, I achieve this through an introduction to a wide array of primary and secondary sources. In addition, I seek to make the questions of the past relevant to our present-day situation.

Since my arrival in 2002, I have taught history classes at all levels, from 100 to 500 levels. The survey courses range from 90 to 110 undergraduates and are primarily content-driven lectures, but I have introduced assignments and techniques that are engaging and effective. For example, students analyze Prohibition's causes and debate whether stricter alcohol regulations are needed today. These exercises foster writing skills and frame controversial issues within a broader historical context.

Courses Taught

• HIST 171: The World Since 1500
• HIST 260: American History to 1865
• HIST 261: American History Since 1865
• HIST 363: U.S. Sport History
• HIST 469: The Vietnam War