A Night at the Gardens
A Night at the Gardens: Class, Gender, and Respectability in 1930s Toronto tells the fascinating story of how one prominent public building became such an important part of Toronto society.
Share
Cover of “A Night at the Gardens” by Russell Field, 2024 Heritage Toronto Book Award nominee. Cover designed by Heng Wee Tan. Cover illustration from City of Toronto Archives.
Author: Russell Field
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
When Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens opened in 1931, manager Conn Smythe envisioned an arena that would project an aura of middle-class respectability. In A Night at the Gardens, Russell Field shares how this new arena anticipated spectators by examining varying spectator behaviours, who the spectators were, and what the experience of spectating was like.
Drawing on archival records, the book explores the neighbourhood in which Maple Leaf Gardens was situated, the design of the arena’s interior spaces, and the ways in which the venue was operated in order to appeal to respectable spectators at a particular intersection of class and gender. In doing so, it brings new light to both the Gardens itself as a social and architectural centre for the city of Toronto but also reveals the multifaceted character of Toronto’s citizens.
About the Author:
Russell Field is a historian interested in the socio-cultural study of sport and physical activity and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba. He holds a PhD in Exercise Science from the University of Toronto. His research includes the examination of global sporting events as sites of resistance and protest and use of people’s history/history from below to broaden our understanding of the lived experience of sport. Russell Field is the founder and executive director of the Canadian Sport Film Festival.