US yearly lists before 1957?

[Conor Dary]

If you go to the main page you get this....

USA Track & Field
Special thanks to:
Bill Malon, who kindly sent me the results of 1876-1985 USA National Championships from the book he co-wrote with Ian Buchanan. Hall Bateman, who helped me in creating the Search Engine and populating it with more than 15,000 American Athletes Profiles.
For the USA Olympic Trials, I covered the final results only. For more information, I recommend you refer to the excellent book,
"The History of the US Olympic Trials," by Richard Hymans.
I used "The Progression of the American National Record" book, published by Scott Davis, Don Potts and Dave Carey as main source for USA Record Progression.

Those references are a good start....but hardly comprehensive....I've spent lots of time trying to find performances from the past on certain athletes but you'd be amazed how much is not in a book and certainly not online....I've scoured newspapers page by page...
And kuha has spent hundreds of hours on late 19th century and early 20th century performances and a lot are in obscure meets....

Anyways it's entertaining....and leave it at that.

[Conor Dary]

I prefer to see the glass 95% full . . .

I guess....but when you go to something like this and my thought is how accurate is it ....it kind of takes the joy out of it..

That is what is great about the Hymans and Quercetani books.....you know they spent long hours researching this stuff in libraries reading stuff like Spirit of the Times....or old newspapers and periodicals.... you don't have to doubt it.

It is one thing to write books on National championships ....but trying to come up with top 10 performances lists for the early years is really really hard....and probably a lot more now since a lot of old newspapers don't exist anymore....

And using only secondary sources for research is about 10% of the work needed....no matter what you are doing....

[Atticus]

my thought is how accurate is it ....it kind of takes the joy out of it..That is what is great about the Hymans and Quercetani books.....you know they spent long hours researching this stuff

I suspect complete cross-pollination, sharing resources. I have to believe they've vetted their info through all available resources.

[Conor Dary]

I suspect complete cross-pollination, sharing resources. I have to believe they've vetted their info through all available resources.

He lists 3 references and a website....

[bambam1729]

That is what is great about the Hymans and Quercetani books.....you know they spent long hours researching this stuff in libraries reading stuff like Spirit of the Times....or old newspapers and periodicals.... you don't have to doubt it..

Lest you think that Mallon / Buchanan did not research the USA National Championships, here is the list of our references from the book:

The following primary sources were used, listed along with the years for which they contained information. In addition, The New York Times article on the national meet was consulted for every year through 1960. Also, the local newspaper article on each meet (when not held in New York) was consulted for every year through 1948.

Amateur Athlete (1920-1940)
AAU Guides (1921-1949)
Athletics Weekly (1946-1947)
The Marathon Footrace (Gynn/Martin) (various years)
The Milers (Nelson/Quercetani) (various years)
The New York Clipper (1876-1900)
The New York Sportsman (1876-1890)
1984 United States Final Olympic Track & Field Trials Media Guide (Davis/Mallon) (many Olympic years)
Spalding's Official Athletic Almanacs (1910-1942)
The Spirit of the Times (1876-1900)
Track (1931-1932)
Track & Field News (1948-1985)

[Conor Dary]

Lest you think that Mallon / Buchanan did not research the USA National Championships, here is the list of our references from the book:

The following primary sources were used, listed along with the years for which they contained information. In addition, The New York Times article on the national meet was consulted for every year through 1960. Also, the local newspaper article on each meet (when not held in New York) was consulted for every year through 1948.

Amateur Athlete (1920-1940)
AAU Guides (1921-1949)
Athletics Weekly (1946-1947)
The Marathon Footrace (Gynn/Martin) (various years)
The Milers (Nelson/Quercetani) (various years)
The New York Clipper (1876-1900)
The New York Sportsman (1876-1890)
1984 United States Final Olympic Track & Field Trials Media Guide (Davis/Mallon) (many Olympic years)
Spalding's Official Athletic Almanacs (1910-1942)
The Spirit of the Times (1876-1900)
Track (1931-1932)
Track & Field News (1948-1985)

I never implied anything about your book......I assumed it was well researched.....or the others which I'm familiar with.....just a web site listing the top performers in a given year which is something different....

[wamego relays champ]

I never implied anything about your book......I assumed it was well researched.....or the others which I'm familiar with.....just a web site listing the top performers in a given year which is something different....

Such skepticism may be understandable, given that the operator of the site (apparently Michael Nonna) may not be a familiar name in the canon of T&F statisticians. But that does not mean it is unreliable, especially when parts of the database gives credit to sources that we know were meticulously researched.

I’ve always felt that the user interface and formatting of the site was extremely well done, and until glaring data errors are noticed the site certainly fills a need for those who have asked the question posed at the start of this thread.

[Conor Dary]

Such skepticism may be understandable, given that the operator of the site (apparently Michael Nonna) may not be a familiar name in the canon of T&F statisticians. But that does not mean it is unreliable, especially when parts of the database gives credit to sources that we know were meticulously researched.

I’ve always felt that the user interface and formatting of the site was extremely well done, and until glaring data errors are noticed the site certainly fills a need for those who have asked the question posed at the start of this thread.

But the references are for championship meets or the Trials..or national record progression ....which are not the same as what is in a book such Track and Field Performances through the Years....a list of yearly top performers and performances which is a much bigger project.

Frankly just because it looks nice doesn't mean anything...

[bambam1729]

Such skepticism may be understandable, given that the operator of the site (apparently Michael Nonna) may not be a familiar name in the canon of T&F statisticians. But that does not mean it is unreliable, especially when parts of the database gives credit to sources that we know were meticulously researched.

I’ve always felt that the user interface and formatting of the site was extremely well done, and until glaring data errors are noticed the site certainly fills a need for those who have asked the question posed at the start of this thread.

The guy who runs it is actually named Michael Rabinovich. He is a Russian native came to the US several years back. I help him a little with the site, but he also helps with many other T&F stats projects

[LopenUupunut]

No source is perfectly accurate when you go far enough back, there will be performances missing or ghost performances appearing, wrong dates, wrong names, etc. (Just think how often you get all of those for current athletes and performances, even in sources like IAAF or Tilastopaja. Then imagine you're a historical researcher and have to piece everything together from 100-year-old-data, in an era where even the most basic rules could vary from place to place.)

From what I've seen, his site has its share of errors but they tend to be common errors that were copied from, and continue to appear in, more seemingly-respectable references.