Pigskin Panorama!

There are three things about this "Pigskin Panorama" that should give you pause. It is from 1939, and it maps all of the college football teams in America. Look at it for a minute--then read about the oddities below.

The first two are contextual. Dartmouth has a good football team now--that last few years we have been competitive in the Ivy League, but things were different in the 1938 season. In that era, Dartmouth was a national powerhouse. On the back of the map there is one Dartmouth player listed as first-team All-American, and another listed as second team All-American. All-Americans!

That's one thing. The next one is just how big the Dartmouth player is that is representing team--look around the map, those big players are for the really big teams!

Then the third thing--and this is the most interesting. Eight teams are designated as members of the "Ivy League," and Cornell is listed as the Ivy League champion. "But wait," you history buffs cry out, "the Ivy League wasn't formed until the 1950s! How can this be?" You are right, the league didn't come into being until 1954, but the name had been bandied about by sports writers since the 1920s, and this map is for fans, so there you go, the Ivy League in 1939.

To see it, ask for Iconography 1737.