"Whither Woman Goeth ..."

Biggest indoor sport event in the U.S. is the annual tournament of the American Bowling Congress. This week, on 36 brand-new alleys set up in the State Fair Grounds Coliseum at Columbus, Ohio, the vanguard of some 30,000 contestants start rolling--singly, in pairs and five-man teams--for $260,000 in prizes. They will roll on for 72 days & nights.

One out of every five adults in the U.S. bowls. This phenomenon is not only the good luck of Chicago's Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co., the world's No. 1 manufacturer of billiard & bowling paraphernalia--it is also due largely to BBC's good management.

In 1937 BBC's brain-trusters decided to clean up U.S. bowling alleys. Adopting the adage "Whither woman goeth, man will follow," they asked bowling-alley operators to throw out their spittoons, install soda fountains, easy chairs, pretty powder rooms-even nurseries with free nursemaid service, if necessary, to get women bowling. They got Hollywood to produce bowling shorts, hired bowling wizards like New York's Joe Falcaro, St. Louis' Lowell Jackson, San Francisco's Ora Mayer to give lessons in their respective communities. With sales talk like "Try Bowling for Stomach Fag," "Appendicitis Never Gets Bowlers," and "Movie Stars Bowl To Keep Girlish Figures," B-B-C agents invaded industrial plants, organized company and intracompany leagues, sponsored regional and State championships.

Today there are 11,000 U.S. bowling alleys, representing an investment of a billion and a half dollars. At this reformed sport, America's 16,000,000 bowlers (25% women) will spend $207,000,000 this year.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.