Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924

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“Notre Dame football is a new crusade: it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.”
— Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C., Prefect of Religion,
Religious Bulletin, November 17, 1924

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One hundred years ago, the 1924 undefeated University of Notre Dame football team beat the best opponents from across the country and won the Rose Bowl to claim a consensus national championship. Off the field, Notre Dame, along with the country, faced a nativist political environment that, in its most extreme manifestation, birthed the second version of the Ku Klux Klan. To mark the 100th anniversary of the historical Notre Dame Football moniker and team, Elizabeth Hogan, senior archivist for photographs and graphic materials, and Greg Bond, sports archivist and curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, have teamed up to curate “Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924.” The exhibit — which can be seen in Rare Books and Special Collections at the Hesburgh Library — explores how Notre Dame leaders used the unprecedented popularity and visibility of the 1924 football team to combat bigotry and promote a more inclusive America.

The Fighting Irish football success, cemented in national memory by Grantland Rice’s “Four Horsemen” column in the New York Herald Tribune, came during a dangerous and divisive political moment. As the Fighting Irish played their storied season, nativist politics surged across the country. The ideals celebrated white, male and Protestant citizenship and denigrated people — including Catholics, Jews, African Americans, immigrants, and others — who did not fit this restrictive understanding of Americanness.

On the field, Notre Dame football faced its own prejudices. As a result, the team looked nationwide to fill its schedule, traveling to the East and West Coasts and the South. The notoriety and publicity that the Four Horsemen garnered reinforced their popularity among a growing national fanbase for Rockne’s team. With each win of the 1924 season, the Fighting Irish gathered more fans — not only for what they accomplished on the field — but because of who they represented off the field. 

With Notre Dame’s newfound notoriety came opportunity. Notre Dame capitalized on new technologies, networks of supporters, and the acceptance of major mainstream American institutions to embrace the national stage on its own terms. University leaders consciously harnessed the unprecedented popularity and visibility of the 1924 national champion football team to refute surging reactionary nativism and to promote — within the very real political constraints of the era — a more inclusive and welcoming standard of citizenship.

With its history-making success, the Fighting Irish football team belied the arguments of “100% Americanism.” Notre Dame embraced its immigrant, Catholic identity while indisputably rising to the top of college football — one of the most popular athletic pastimes in the United States and a key cultural production of the American political, social, and cultural elite. 

This exhibit features correspondence, publications, photographs, artifacts, and primary source materials from the Notre Dame Archives, including letters to and from Knute Rockne and other administrators, printed publications from campus and off-campus observers, as well as many other materials to tell a sports story that isn’t just about sports. 

Interested in learning more about this important piece of Notre Dame history? Visit the exhibit in person at the Hesburgh Library through January 31, 2025, and read the Hesburgh Libraries’ multimedia feature story.

Those attending the Shamrock Series game at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, November 23, 2024, can also take part in “The Fighting Irish in New York City: A Conversation with Curators and Archivists” hosted by the Hesburgh Libraries in the New York Yankees Museum on the Main Level of Yankee Stadium from 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. The exhibit honors the rich, shared histories of the University of Notre Dame, the New York Yankees and the Fighting Irish football team’s rivalry with Army. Learn more about the Shamrock Series exhibit.

This article was excerpted from the full article written by Becky Malewitz and published on October 14, 2024 by the Hesburgh Libraries.

This exhibit is curated by Gregory Bond, Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, and Elizabeth Hogan, Senior Archivist for Photographs and Graphic Materials. This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.