More than 60 million people in the
United States bowl each year. Nearly 8
million compete regularly in league play
sanctioned by either the American Bowling
Congress, the Women's International Bowling
Congress or the Young American Bowling
Alliance.
Bowling has been traced to articles found in
the tomb of an Egyptian child buried in 5200
BC. The primitive implements included nine
pieces of stone at which a stone "ball" was
rolled, the ball having first to roll through
an archway made of three pieces of marble.
Another ancient discovery was the Polynesian
game of ula maika, which also used pins and
balls of stone. The stones were to be rolled at
targets 60 feet away, a distance which is still
one of the basic regulations of tenpins.
Bowling at tenpins probably originated in
Germany, not as a sport but as a religious
ceremony. Martin Luther is credited with
settling on nine as the ideal number of pins.
Tracing history reveals the game moved through
Europe, the Scandinavian countries and finally
to the United States, where the earliest known
reference to bowling at pins in America was
made by author Washington Irving about 1818 in
Rip Van Winkle.
Although the game was being played throughout
the world, rules were different almost
everywhere, and even basic equipment was not
the same. In fact, why and when the 10th pin
was added from the European game of ninepins to
the American game of tenpins is still a
mystery.
The game became so popular in the mid-19th
century that indoor lanes were being built
throughout Manhattan and the Bronx and on
westward, in Syracuse, Buffalo, Cincinnati,
Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities with large
German populations.
In 1875, delegates from nine bowling clubs in
New York and Brooklyn met in Germania Hall in
the Bowery and organized the National Bowling
Association. Disagreement raged between East
and West, principally involving the New York
State bowlers against everyone else to the
west.
On September 9, 1895, the American Bowling
Congress was organized in Beethoven Hall in New
York city. The breach was healed, rules and
equipment standards were developed and the game
that was formally organized more than a century
ago has remained basically unchanged.
In 1916, a group of 40 women, encouraged by
proprietor Dennis J. Sweeney of St. Louis, met
at Sweeney's establishment and formed the
Women's International Bowling Congress, which
is today the oldest and largest women's sports
organization in the world.
There have been numerous rules modifications
over the years, but no significant alterations
in equipment specifications other than those
adopted to meet changes brought on by such
technological advancements as automation and
the invention of plastic, nylon and other
synthetics.