Early History

A drawing of Oneida Football Club in 1862 - Oneida was the first organized "football" club in the United States.

Origins of Football in the United States

The early history of football in the United States can be found in Indigenous accounts of the game. Few accounts are remaining today, but there are great resources for exploring the game of football Native Americans played. There are even scarcer resources for English accounts of playing football before colonization. For the scope of this research project however, most of the resources that I studied are from times after the 1850's to the 1900's. The game of "football" took on many different forms before organization begins in the U.S. It was most commonly described as a rough-and-tumble game of kicking around a ball; very similar to rugby. Each local game had differing rules from the next, and were largely unwritten and played unorganized. These games primarily took place on private school and college campuses. Though not explicitly reserved for affluent students, physical education was on the rise in private academies across the United States. It was seen as a display of masculinity, and a way to get out any boy-ish energy while not disrupting the classroom at these institutions.

A photo of "Old-Division Football" taking place on a common area of Dartmouth in 1874. Mob style football was a very common unorganized game on college campuses.

A monument for the Onedia Football Club on the Boston Common. Seven members of the team are pictured. Nov 21, 1925.

Oneida's, The Boston Game, and Whose Playing?

Documentation of the game is scarce until the 1860's, and rapidly picks up as organized football begins to form in the U.S. The first teams originate in the New England area in the late 1850's into the early 1860's. Primarily private prep school students, or students from colleges (such as Harvard) were some of the first games that were documented in the United States. The organized game was reserved for the wealthy and elite in these settings, as private and the Ivy League schools that the game began at were expensive for most working class families to send their children too. The Oneida Football Club is generally recognized as the first organized football club created in 1862. Note the timing of this clubs formation, right in the middle of the Civil War. Oneida was based in Boston. The team was made up of students from the prestigious prep schools in the area, with lots of the players coming from Dixwell Latin School. They played under the "Boston Rules", which was much more like rugby and mob football than association rules. Some historians still debate what game the Oneida's were actually playing, as records seem to show them using more rugby like rules. Regardless from the Oneidas, organized football begins to grow in the New England area.

American Football's Connection to Soccer

Rutgers and Princeton played the first American Football game in 1869. Based on the rules from this event, the game was actually much more in line with soccer and rugby rules. Eventually "football" teams in the New England region were dividing over the Boston style game, closer to rugby, or the Association style game of football. The Intercollegiate Football Association formed in 1873, with Yale, Rutgers, Princeton being the founding members. Columbia joined later, but notably Harvard is not on this list despite their ties to the game. Harvard did not agree to play the London style association rules, and wanted to continue playing the Boston Game. Harvard would later play McGill in 1874. One game was played under the "Boston Game", the other under the rugby style rules that McGill played with. The players on the Harvard team realized they enjoyed the rugby game better. This marked the end of the "Boston Game" and the rise of gridiron football.

A photo of the Harvard and McGill University teams playing the infamous match on May 15th, 1874.

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