"Dan Patch: The 20th Century's Greatest Forgotten Celebrity"
Born in 1896 in Oxford, Indiana, by 1905, Dan Patch was one of most recognized sports figures in America. Songs were written to commemorate his accomplishments, and his name could be found endorsing everything from tobacco to washing machines, toys, cars, and even railway lines. Yet despite being one of the country’s greatest sports heroes, when he died in 1916, he was interred in an unmarked grave. Dan Patch’s legacy lives on, though, as the 20th century’s greatest forgotten celebrity, on either two or four legs.
Susan Spellman is Professor of History and chair of the Department of Humanities and Creative Arts at Miami University. She is the author of "Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business" (Oxford University Press, 2016), in addition to several articles on US business history. She received the 2005 Russel B. Nye Award for the Outstanding Article published in the Journal of Popular Culture, the 2011 J. Franklin Jameson Fellowship from the American Historical Association and Library of Congress, and has held fellowships from the Harvard Business School and National Museum of American History, among others. She also is a longtime fan of horse racing.
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