Topeka Kaws · Topeka, Kansas · 1912

Helps Fair Fans

Topeka, 1912. The ball club announces five free days a week for women, an innovation in Western league baseball, and a movie camera at Friday's game. The instructions are specific: Ladies, put on your white dresses and go to the ball game Friday, because white shows up better in the pictures. Do you want the pictures to show long rows of empty seats? Hardly.

“HELPS FAIR FANS,” announced The Topeka State Journal on May 14, 1912, and the fair fans got two pieces of news at once.

First, showbiz. “Ladies, put on your white dresses and go to the ball game Friday. The Victor film company will take moving pictures of the first two innings of the ball game between the Joseyites and the Kaws.” The pictures “will go all over the country and mean a big advertisement for Topeka,” which leads the writer to a civic appeal: “Do you want the pictures to show long rows of empty seats? Hardly. So let’s fill up the grandstand and bleachers for the occasion.” And the wardrobe note, repeated for emphasis: “The ladies are requested to wear white dresses as these show up better in the pictures.”

Second, the real headline. “And now, ladies, listen: The management has a surprise which it hopes will prove a pleasant one, for you. On every day except Saturday, Sunday and holidays you will admitted free at the gate.” The paper calls it “an innovation in Western league baseball,” with Topeka proud to be “the first one to make the venture.” The reasoning is stated plainly: “It costs someth’ng to do it, but the management wants the women to get behind the team and has made this concession.” Then the fine print arrives like a foul tip: “Remember, you will be admitted free at the gate but must pay to sit in the grandstand.”

The column closes with President Arch Catlin due home Tuesday or Wednesday to “send out the free tickets promised for the school children,” so the whole family was getting in cheap that spring. Ladies’ day was a beloved institution everywhere, San Antonio was calling for the fair sex back in 1891, and a dime got you in at Omaha in 1922. Topeka’s five-a-week version was the deluxe model.