Thrashing Seasons: Sporting Culture in Manitoba and the Genesis of Prairie Wrestling

Horseback wrestling, catch-as-catch-can, glima; long before the advent of today's WWE, forms of wrestling were practised by virtually every cultural group. C. Nathan Hatton's "Thrashing Seasons" tells the story of wrestling in Manitoba from its earliest documented origins in the eighteenth century, to the Great Depression. Wrestling was never merely a sport: residents of Manitoba found meaning beyond the simple act of two people struggling for physical advantage on a mat, in a ring, or on a grassy field. Frequently controversial and often divisive, wrestling was nevertheless a popular and resilient cultural practice that proved adaptable to the rapidly changing social conditions in western Canada during its early boom period. In addition to chronicling the colourful exploits of the many athletes who shaped wrestling's early years, Hatton explores wrestling as a social phenomenon intimately bound up with debates around respectability, ethnicity, race, class, and idealized conceptions of masculinity. In doing so, "Thrashing Seasons" illuminates wrestling as a complex and socially significant cultural activity, one that has been virtually unexamined by Canadian historians looking at the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Author: C. Nathan Hatton
Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
Published: 04/22/2016
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9780887558009
ISBN10: 0887558003
BISAC Categories:
- Sports & Recreation | Wrestling
- History | Social History
- Sports & Recreation | History

About the Author
C. Nathan Hatton grew up in the communities of Prairie River, Saskatchewan, and White River, Ontario. He teaches history at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.