Their Day in the Sun: Women of the 1932 Olympics (Samuel and Althea Stroum Books) - Hardcover
The 1932 Olympic games took place in Los Angeles in the depths of the Great Depression; that they were held at all falls barely short of miraculous. The United States sent thirty-seven women to compete - seventeen swimmers, seventeen track and field athletes, and three fencers. It was not easy, and far from acceptable, for a woman to be an athlete in 1932. As late as April 1931 the International Olympic Committee seriously considered eliminating women's events. The young Americans did their part to capture the imagination of spectators and reporters. Through the sports press they catapulted the Olympic Games and women's athletics into the nation's consciousness as never before. Doris Pieroth creates vivid portraits of the women, including the great Babe Didrikson the confident and outspoken track and field star, Tidye Pickett, one of only two African American women who represented the United States despite encountering racial discrimination; and Helene Madison, winner of three gold medals in swimming, who returned triumphantly to Seattle's West Green Lake Beach - as a hotdog vendor (park department rules barred women from teaching swimming). Pieroth's account is drawn from interviews with eleven of the women athletes, family members, other Olympians of the era, and witnesses of the 1932 games. She also quotes extensively from contemporary journalists such as Paul Gallico, Westbrook Pegler, and Damon Runyon, whose mixture of condescension, fulsome admiration for the "glamour girl" swimmers, and genuine, if sometimes grudging, admiration for the accomplishments of the athletes provides an intriguing view of the stereotypes these Olympic contestants were challenging.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews:
An oddly touching compendium of the female Olympic athletes of 1932, a year the author considers ``pivotal'' for female athletes. In 1931, the International Olympic Committee considered eliminating women's events. But the 1932 Los Angeles venue, and the participation of such star athletes as Babe Didrikson, helped establish the reputation of women's sports. Historian Pieroth here collects the stories of the 1932 female Olympians from the Olympic trials to the Los Angeles Summer Games. Some of their stories are vivid: Didrikson's formidable skill and her controversial victory in the 80-meter hurdles--as she crossed the tape, Babe held up her arms as a sign of victory, though observers and a still photo show her in a dead heat with teammate Evelyne Hall. Ever the favorite, Babe took the gold. Swimmer Helene Madison, confident of victory in the 100-meter freestyle race, casually strolled onto the pool deck just as the race was about to begin. The embarrassed swimmer won. Other stories are sadder: Black sprinters Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes were not allowed to run in the 4 X 100 meter relay. Perhaps most interesting is the gender-based bias of the 1932 Olympic rules. American divers, lined up at the board, were sent back to the dressing room to don less revealing suits. In the high jump, women were expected to daintily hop over the bar in a sitting-up position. Didrikson, though the highest jumper, was fouled out of her gold when she jumped over the bar head first, as the men did. And it frequently took judges more than an hour to decide who had won a given running event and what the time was, since watches were inaccurate. Though the book is somewhat disorganized, and women's sports have become much more competitive in the last 64 years, Pieroth's admiration for these athletes is infectious, and their determination remains impressive. (24 photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Publishers Weekly:
As anyone whose followed the Olympics this year knows, women made up nearly half of the American Olympic team that went to Atlanta and represented the country's best hopes for medals. But 64 years before Jackie Joyner-Kersee and the women's basketball team strutted their stuff in Atlanta, the first female Olympians were given trowels "to dig 'starting holes' in the cinder track surface" and divers "practiced timing and kept legs in shape on a springboard, making their usual approaches and hurdles and landing on a thin mat." Pieroth, an historian who taught phys-ed and water safety for many years, outlines the athletes' lives, taking the reader through the trials, the Olympics, and their experiences after they returned from Los Angeles. The result is a delightful tale of pain and gain with disapproving parents and media, a swimmer who turned down an offer to join the Ziegfeld Follies to train for the Olympic team and, of course, the swaggering Babe Didrickson. "If there is anything more dreadful aesthetically or more depressing than the fatigue-distorted face of a girl runner at the finish line," wrote one journalist, "I have never seen it." It didn't change the status of women's sports overnight (in 1939, for example, Minnesota outlawed strenuous competition for girls). But for that year, before politics hijacked the games, even journalists cheered for the girls and women who defied the norms of the day to win fans and medals.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherUniversity of Washington Press
- Publication date2018
- ISBN 10 0295997419
- ISBN 13 9780295997414
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages208
- Rating
(No Available Copies)
Search Books: Create a WantIf you know the book but cannot find it on AbeBooks, we can automatically search for it on your behalf as new inventory is added. If it is added to AbeBooks by one of our member booksellers, we will notify you!
Create a Want