POTW: Baseball Wives

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by playing on the field for the opening day of the season for the Brooklyn Dodgers. As we approach the 79^th anniversary of Robinson shattering one of America’s most blatant examples of segregation in sports, this POTW will focus on Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s wife and partner. This image, from 1952, features Robinson accompanied by a friend from Chicago, as they root for the Dodgers. Robinson attended all of his home games in the early days of his baseball career, all while receiving hate mail and death threats.

As early press coverage of Robinson relegated her to as one of the “baseball wives”, much attention was paid towards being one of the first women of her race to occupy spectator seats at Ebbets Field during the Dodger’s participation in the World Series. Trained as a nurse at UCLA, Robinson focused her attention towards philanthropic efforts, fundraising for the Stuyvesant Community Center and even collaborating with Eleanor Roosvelt to assist with the placement and adoption of African American children across homes nationally. Ultimately, she pursued her master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing at NYU and continued her career in the field until her husband’s passing. The Jackie Robinson Foundation, formed in 1973 a few months after his death, exists to this day, providing scholarships and access to higher education to minority students.   

At the time of this writing, Rachel Robinson is 103 years old. 

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We welcome appointments to research our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.