COMMITTED TO A CLEAN SPORT

The American Bowling Congress worked hard in the early 1900s to make bowling respectable, fair and popular. Bowlers who sported membership tokens, such as this one from 1910, were part of a group who agreed to play with standardized equipment according to standardized rules. And most importantly, these participants agreed not to gamble on the sport or otherwise behave in a way that might turn off middle-class Americans distrustful of a game that used to be associated with bars and taverns.