By Becky Malewitz | October 14, 2024
On October 19, 1924 — printed in black and white on the front page of the New York Herald Tribune — the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame galloped into existence, marking a new era for the University of Notre Dame.
"Outlined against a blue, gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they were known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon. . . ."
The poetic prose of journalist Grantland Rice — immortalized in newsprint after Notre Dame's 13–7 victory over Army — described the four men of Notre Dame’s backfield: Harry Stuhldreher, Don Miller, Jim Crowley and Elmer Layden. Led by the quartet and coach Knute Rockne, the 1924 team beat some of the best opponents from across the country. Their undefeated season culminated in a Rose Bowl win to claim a consensus national championship.
“A century later, the Four Horsemen are still an icon for Notre Dame football,” said Elizabeth Hogan, University Archives senior archivist for photographs and graphic materials.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the historical Notre Dame Football moniker and team, Hogan, and Greg Bond, University Archives 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 — a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame Archives and Hesburgh Libraries Rare Books and Special Collections — explores how Notre Dame leaders harnessed the unprecedented popularity and visibility of the 1924 football team to combat bigotry and promote a more inclusive America.
“Sports is never just about sports; it has always been political,” Bond said. “That may frustrate some people who just want to see the action on the field, but in 1924, Notre Dame recognized that football was an avenue to address bigger issues.”
Politics of the time
During the 1920s, surging nativist politics helped give rise to the second Ku Klux Klan and their “100% Americanism” political movement. The Klan and nativist sympathizers 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. Policies at the federal level in the early 1920s reflected these sentiments with the adoption of new laws to flow the influx of post-World War I immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and from many other regions.
In May 1924 — just months before the Fighting Irish began their storied season on the gridiron — the Klan attempted to hold a parade and picnic in South Bend. The events were intended as a show of force in one of the state's heavily Catholic regions and home to Notre Dame.
Hundreds of students made their way downtown in objection to the event. They ripped hoods off Klan members and chased them back into their South Bend headquarters.
In a letter to his mother — which can be seen in the exhibit — then-student Joseph Breig describes his experience at the event. “...I met a Mason in front of the Oliver Hotel who commended us, said he was a Mason, Protestant, and an upholder of law, but that he believed the Klan had no right to exist.”
Prejudice on the field
On the football field, Notre Dame football faced its own prejudices. Before and after students clashed with the Klan, some regional colleges refused to play the Catholic school.
“Many coaches at the time were not quiet about their prejudice against Catholics and immigrants,” Hogan said.
As a result, the football team looked nationwide to fill their schedule, traveling to the East and West Coast and the South.
Reminiscing on, what he called, a "theological controversy" about football, former University President Rev. John W. Cavanaugh, C.S.C., wrote that "... Notre Dame could not secure regularly desirable contests with schools in the Middle West and in that way was obliged to go to West Point in the East, to Pittsburgh in the Middle distance, to Georgia Tech on the South, to Iowa on the Western side and even as far as the California coast." Cavanaugh observed that "[t]here has been some criticism of the team for doing so much traveling, but it was a stern necessity rather than a preferred policy."
Seeking matchups outside of their region, Notre Dame competed and won against some of the best teams in the country. This eventually led to the team’s 1924 win over national power Army and Rice’s famous Four Horsemen column.
Growth of a fanbase
After the Army game, the Four Horsemen nickname stuck.
“It has been interesting searching through digitized newspapers and tracing the evolution of the Four Horsemen moniker,” Hogan said.
Through their research — in part using Hesburgh Libraries digital newspaper databases — Hogan and Bond could trace how the appellation — eventually defined by an image of the quartet sitting on horseback— spread with each win of the 1924 season.
“Newspapers did almost all the heavy lifting,” Bond said.
The notoriety and publicity that the Four Horsemen garnered reinforced their popularity among a growing national fanbase for Notre Dame football.
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.
“Notre Dame succeeded at this very American thing — college football. The Fighting Irish's gridiron success inserted them into the broader contemporary conversations about contested citizenship and what it meant to be an American,” Bond said.
This earned the team — and by extension, the University — a nationwide fanbase of Catholics, immigrants and other people who opposed the Klan and the 100% Americanism political movement.
“This helped to build what we now call ‘subway alumni,’” Bond said.
“Be Not Unworthy of Victory”
As Notre Dame’s nationwide fanbase grew, the University administration recognized an opportunity to further its mission.
“Throughout the 1924 season, there is an overarching story about how the University leveraged football to bolster Notre Dame's brand and grow the influence of Catholicism,” said Hogan.
In a November 1924 news bulletin titled, “Be Not Afraid of Victory” — on display in the exhibit — Prefect of Religion Rev. John F. O'Hara, C.S.C., wrote, “Notre Dame football is a new crusade: it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.”
“Notre Dame 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,“ Bond said.
There were, however, real limits to the broader version of Americanism championed by Notre Dame. During the 1920s, for example, African Americans did not enjoy full access to citizenship — or to Notre Dame itself. Despite supporting a more inclusive idea of Americanness, Notre Dame, like many contemporary opponents of the Klan and nativist politics, offered only limited opportunities to Black Americans.
Bond and Hogan touch upon this complicated history through the story of African American athletic trainer Verly Smith, whom Knute Rockne hired to work with the Notre Dame football program in 1924. Smith found a welcoming and supportive place on campus. At the same time, though, as the exhibit explains, Notre Dame administrators declined to enroll Black students until WW2.
The 100th-anniversary exhibit
“Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice” exhibit allows visitors to view a significant Notre Dame milestone through a new lens.
“I hope people understand the questions we're raising in this exhibit,” Bond said. “Questions about immigration, belonging, inclusion, minority rights and who's an American aren't new. We're still talking about and debating these subjects. Perhaps if we study the past, it can help chart our way forward.”
The exhibit contains 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.
“Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924” is generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment. The exhibition is open to the public and will remain on display in 102 Hesburgh Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, through January 2025.