History of Bowling

Early History

Rolling a ball to knock down targets has been the object of a number of games, at various times and in various parts of the world. The implements for such a game have been found in an Egyptian tomb that's more than 7,000 years old, and a sort of bowling has been popular among Polynesian Islanders for at least several centuries.

But the modern sport of bowling, which seems distinctly American and very secular, probably grew out of a German religious ceremony.

In the 3rd century AD, every German peasant carried a Kegel, a club similar to the Irish shillelagh, for protection. It became a customary test of faith in many churches for the parishioner to set up his Kegel as a target, representing the heathen, and then roll a stone in an attempt to knock it down. If he succeeded, he was considered free of sin.

Bowling eventually moved out of the church and became a popular secular sport, with a wooden ball replacing the stone and multiple pins (from as few as three to as many as seventeen) replacing the single Kegel.

There are several references to bowling in Germany during the Middle Ages. Berlin and Cologne in 1325 set a limit on the amount that could be bet on a bowling match. A 1463 feast in Frankfurt featured bowling, along with a venison dinner. And the winner of a 1518 competition in Breslau was awarded an ox.

From Germany, the sport spread into Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. Bowling also moved indoors, into covered sheds with lanes made of wood or sun-baked clay. These Kegelbahns, as they were called in Germany, were often associated with inns or taverns.

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Bowling in America

Dutch in New Amsterdam were bowling at ninepins by 1650. In that form of bowling, which was widespread in Europe, the nine pins were arranged in a diamond, 1-2-3-2-1 pattern. The "alley" was frequently a plank, about a foot and a half wide and up to 90 feet long, so it took some skill simply to avoid what we would call a gutter ball.

Although English settlers brought lawn bowling (which doesn't use pins) and skittles, a form of ninepins, to the colonies, it seems likely that tenpins evolved from the Dutch sport.

Connecticut banned ninepins in 1841 because of the gambling associated with the game. The story has often been written that a tenth pin was added to get around that law, but there's no substance to it. Actually, a town in New York had earlier prohibited tenpin bowling, also because it led to gambling.

The pins used during this period were tall and slender, much like modern candlepins. About 1850, the heavier, bottle-shaped pins were substituted to make scores higher. That eventually created a different sort of game, in which strikes and spares became paramount for the best bowlers.

Bowling was a very popular sport in New York City in the middle of the nineteenth century. A newspaper said there were more than 400 alleys in the city in 1850. It then declined for a time. One reason may have been that the larger pins made it too easy. The prevalence of gambling was another factor. Bowling, like billiards, was considered semi-respectable, at best.

When nine clubs from New York City and Brooklyn formed the National Bowling Association (NBA) in 1875, one of its purposes was to standardize rules. Just as important, though, the clubs wanted to eliminate gambling among their members.

The NBA didn't last long, but the rules its member clubs established are still the basic rules of bowling. A similar New York-based organization, the American Amateur Bowling Union, established in 1890, was also short-lived.

Meanwhile, German immigrants helped to popularize the sport in the Midwest, especially in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. With inter-club and inter-league bowling on the increase, equipment and rules had to be standardized nationally.

As a result, the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was founded as a genuine national federation of clubs at Beethoven Hall in New York City on September 9, 1895. In 1901, 41 teams from 17 cities in 9 states competed in the ABC's first National Bowling Championships in Chicago. There were also 155 singles and 78 doubles competitors.

Under the leadership of the ABC, bowling quickly became both popular and respectable. Gambling was virtually eliminated--partly because of prize money offered not only by member leagues, but also in ABC-sanctioned regional and national competition.

With the sport cleaned up, women were attracted to bowling in large numbers. The Women's National Bowling Association, founded in 1916, conducted its first national championship the following year. The association was renamed the Women's International Bowling Congress (WIBC) in 1971.

Approximately 60 million people in the U. S. go bowling at least once a year. More important, about 7 million of them compete in league play sanctioned by the ABC and/or WIBC.

A steady stream of young bowlers has been a major reason for the sport's continuing popularity throughout this century. Bowlers of high school age and younger originally came under the jurisdiction of the American Junior Bowling Congress, an ABC affiliate. That organization was replaced in 1982 by the autonomous Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA), which sanctions league and tournament play of bowlers through college age.

Although collegiate bowling is rarely mentioned in the media, many conferences offer team competition and championship tournaments. National championships have been conducted since 1959 by the Association of College Unions (ACU) and since 1962 by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).