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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)

Collection

Donated in 1989, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) collection is one of the most broadly utilized at the Center for History. The 3,200+ piece collection consists of uniforms, equipment, photographs and ephemera of the 14 teams that participated in the League between 1943-1954. With the Hollywood production of A League of Their Own in 1992, public awareness and interest in the collection skyrocketed. Artifacts from the Center for History's AAGPBL collection have been shown at the Women’s Museum, Dallas, Texas; the Milwaukee Historical Society; and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York.
The AAGPBL collection contains the following:

- over 2,000 photographs of teams and players from League play and League reunions

- rule books, League manuals and guidebooks

- team boxes containing programs, scorecards, and yearbooks for most teams

- player profiles containing contracts, letters, and questionnaires filled out by many players

- statistics for many players

- audio-taped broadcasts of games and oral history interviews with players

- videotapes of game footage, reunions, and movies about the League

- magazine and newspaper articles written about the League and its players

- memorabilia from the movie A League of Their Own

- Player Association Newsletters

- research notes from books and papers written on the League

- reunion memorabilia

- 32 scrapbooks put together by players and fans during the League’s existence

- When Women Played Hardball, written by Susan Johnson and A Whole New Ball Game, written by Sue Macy

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

The Northern Indiana Center for History is the national repository for the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The League, which was active from 1943-1954, was established by Philip K. Wrigley when the Office of War Information warned that the 1943 Major League Baseball season might be suspended because of the need for manpower for World War II.
In the spirit of the “Rosie-the-Riveter” campaign, Wrigley believed that women could fill the void left were the major league season to be canceled. He joined Branch Rickey and several small town entrepreneurs, and held tryouts for his new league, which attracted women from all over the United States and Canada.
The League began play in 1943 with teams in Kenosha, Racine, Rockford, and South Bend. By 1954, the last season of play, the League had expanded to 12 teams, all located in the Midwest. The teams included the Rockford Peaches, South Bend Blue Sox, Kenosha Comets, Racine Belles, Milwaukee Chicks, Minneapolis Millerettes, Grand Rapids Chicks, Fort Wayne Daisies, Muskegon Lassies, Peoria Redwings, Chicago Colleens, Springfield Sallies, Battle Creek Belles and Kalamazoo Lassies.

Exhibition

On view at the Center for History is the exhibition Women Who Played Hard Ball: The Real "League of Their Own."

Information

For more information, contact the Northern Indiana Center for History Archives at (574) 235-9664 or for more information on the AAGPBL click here