Tonight, the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame & Museum debuts its “Women in Baseball” exhibit, highlighting women’s involvement and contributions to the team and the sport over the years.
The exhibit will display more than 100 artifacts from the museum’s own collection and on loan from the Missouri Historical Society, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and personal family collections. Guests will see an authentic uniform tunic from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, among other items.
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The museum’s manager and curator, Paula Homan, who has been with team since 1993, tells SLM that she’s known for many years about three particular women who were instrumental in the Cardinals’ identity, including Helene Britton, who owned the St. Louis Cardinals in 1911 and was the first woman to own any major American sports franchise.
Did you also know an anonymous female fan originally coined the team’s name? During Opening Day in 1899, Homan says, a woman remarked, “What a lovely shade of cardinal,” referring to the team’s new uniforms. The comment was picked up by a sports writer, and it took off.
A woman was also responsible for the Cardinals logo, Homan says. In 1921, Allie May Schmidt was searching for decoration ideas for a church dinner, where former Cardinals manager Branch Rickey was a guest speaker. “It was February, and she was looking out her window, and a Cardinal bird landed on a branch of a lilac bush in her backyard,” Homan says. Schmidt constructed Cardinal cardboard cut-outs that eventually decorated the church’s basement. In 1922, the Cardinals introduced the birds-on-the-bat logo based on her inspiration.
The exhibit will also display artifacts from the Britton and Schimidt families, as well as information about the team’s Ms. Redbird, the team’s uniform seamstresses, and more.
“We just had a lot fun looking at how women interact as literally part of the fabric and identity of the Cardinals,” Homan says. “We feel, especially with those formative stories, there’s a really strong connection to women that ties into the very identity of this team. I think that’s big news. I’m not sure that other franchises have any parallel to that.”
The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame & Museum is located on the second floor of Cardinals Nation Restaurant & Bar in Ballpark Village. “Women in Baseball” will run through October 2017. An opening celebration will take place tonight from 6–9 p.m at Cardinals Nation. The Ladies Night event will feature free after-hours museum admission, food and drink specials, and appearances by Homan and MLB.com Cardinals beat writer Jenifer Langosch.
