National Bowling Day
Today, August 14, is National Bowling Day! Although ancient in origin, the modern ten-pin game in the U.S. appears to have its beginnings sometime in the early decades of the 19th century, and our national day to celebrate the sport is set on the second Saturday in August.
As someone who really enjoys bowling but isn’t particularly good at it, I scoured our collections for something fun and bowling-related. One of the things I found is this program from the 33rd SNPJ National Bowling Tournament, which took place May 9-10 in 1969.
The SNPJ is the Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota, or the Slovene National Benefit Society. From the SNPJ website:
“Founded on April 6, 1904, SNPJ was initially incorporated as Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota, which translates to Slovene National Benefit Society in English. In honor of the founders we have retained our Slovenian initials, and our society is now best known by its original Slovenian acronym, ‘SNPJ.’
Initially organized to offer affordable life insurance and disability coverage to early Slovenian immigrants, the SNPJ founders established a unique, centralized financial fund that allowed the Society to develop and grow rapidly.”
The SNPJ still offers social events like bowling tournaments and has lodges across the country.
My favorite thing about this program is the team names! We’ve got the Hoosier Leftovers, the Detroit Sleepers, the Jolly Allis Jokers, the Five Nothings, the Sock-It-To-Me’s, the Badger Bippies, and many more! I hope you enjoy the teams names and the 1969 advertisements!
On a sidenote, my partner is Slovenian and every year we make potica (pronounced “puh-tee-tza”) with his family, and on the SNPJ website they have a recipe for potica that isn’t too far off from the one his grandma uses!
- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager
