Margaret Abbott

Margaret Ives Abbott was born on June 15, 1878, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), British Raj, to Charles and Mary Ives Abbott. Her father was a wealthy American merchant who died in 1879. Margaret, along with her mother and her siblings, moved to Boston. During her teenage years, her mother became literary editor of the Chicago Herald and the family moved to Chicago in 1884.^[3]

In the late nineteenth century, women were restricted from competing in various sports. Golf clubs allowed women to play only if they were accompanied by a man. Abbott, along with her mother, began playing golf at the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, a suburb of Chicago. She was coached by amateur golfers Charles B. Macdonald and H. J. Whigham. Abbott and Macdonald partnered in an 1897 tournament at Washington Park. She won several local tournaments, and by 1899, she had a two handicap.^[4] She was referred to as a "fierce competitor", and was known to have a "classy backswing".^[5] That same year, she and her mother traveled to Paris. Her mother researched and wrote a travel guide A Woman's Paris: A Handbook of Every-day Living in the French Capital (1900); Margaret studied art alongside Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas.^[4]

 

 

The 1900 Summer Olympics, hosted in Paris between May and October, was the second modern Olympics. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Olympics, initially planned the games for men only. In 1900, however, women were allowed to compete in five sports: golf, tennis, sailing, rowing, and equestrianism.^[7] Out of a total of 997 athletes, 22 were women.^[8] The events lacked proper equipment,^[9] did not have an opening or closing ceremony, and included sports like tug of war, kite flying, hot air ballooning, and pigeon racing.^[2] Two golf events were scheduled—one for men and one for women.^[10] The women's event was held over 9 holes ranging in distance from 59 meters (65 yards) to 195 meters (213 yards) from the ladies' tees; the men's was a 36-hole event.^[11] Titled "Prix de la ville de Compiègne",^[12] the women's event took place on October 3 in Compiègne, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Paris.^[13]

The Olympics coincided with the 1900 Paris Exposition, and many believed that it was overshadowed by the latter.^[14] Golf Illustrated referred to the event as the competition "in connection with the Paris Exhibition".^[15] The golf tournament was billed as the "Exposition Competition" or "Paris World's Fair Competition" instead of being referred to as an Olympic event.^[2] Olympics historian Bill Mallon later said: "A lot of the events in 1900 were considered demonstration sports. It's very hard to tell what was an Olympics sport and what was not." According to Mallon, many athletes did not know that they were participating in the Olympics.^[16]

Abbott learned about the tournament from a newspaper notice. Taking a break from her studies, she decided to sign up for the event.^[17] She won with a score of 47 strokes.^[6] Pauline Whittier was the runner-up, with 49 strokes, while Abbie Pratt finished 3rd with 53 strokes.^[6] Mary Abbott also participated in the event and tied for seventh place with a score of 65.^[11] All ten competitors played in long skirts and hats.^[2] According to Philip Dunne, his mother would later tell her family she won the tournament "because all the French girls apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled that day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts".^[18]

For her victory Abbott was awarded an old Saxon porcelain bowl mounted in chiseled gold.^[6] The winners of some events at the Paris games were awarded rectangular gold, silver, and bronze medals designed by French sculptor Frédéric Vernon.^[19] No medals were awarded for many other events, including golf, with prizes instead being cups, bowls, and other similar trophies.^[20] Abbott's victory was reported in the Chicago Tribune.^[6]

 

Abbott stayed in Paris and won a French championship before returning to America in 1901.^[21] She married the writer Finley Peter Dunne on December 9, 1902. According to the Chicago Tribune, although the wedding ceremony "was celebrated as quietly and with as little display as possible", they received telegrams from "dozens of [...] literary lights", including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.^[22] The couple later settled in New York City.^[21] They had four children, including Philip Dunne.^[23] Abbott did not compete in many tournaments due to a knee injury caused by a childhood accident.^[18] Records of Abbott's ties to the Chicago Golf Club were destroyed in the 1912 clubhouse fire.^[18] Abbott died at the age of 76 on June 10, 1955,^[2] in Greenwich, Connecticut, five days before she would have turned 77.^[7]

Abbott never realized that she participated in and became the first American woman to win an Olympic event.^[2] She was not well known until Paula Welch, a professor at the University of Florida and a member of the Olympics Board of Directors, researched her life during the 1970s when she first saw Abbott mentioned as an Olympic champion in 1973. Welch spent a decade examining newspaper articles that mentioned Abbott's successes in various golfing competitions.^[24] In the mid-1980s, she contacted Philip, Abbott's son, informing him about his mother's Olympic victory.^[25] Analyzing the reasons for her obscurity, Welch said: "We didn't have the coverage that we have today [...] She came back. She got married. She raised her family. She played some golf, but she didn't really pursue it in tournaments."^[2]

Writing for Golf Digest in 1984, Philip wrote: "It's not every day that you learn your mother was an Olympic champion, 80-odd years after the fact. The champion herself had told us only that she had won the golf championship of Paris."^[26] In 1996, Abbott was the featured athlete of the 1900 Olympics in the official Olympics program of the Atlanta games.^[27] After 1904, golf was not included in the Olympic Games until the 2016 Summer Olympics.^[28] In 2018, The New York Times published her belated obituary.^[2]

• Margaret Abbott at Olympics.com 
• Margaret Abbott at Olympedia 
•   Media related to Margaret Abbott at Wikimedia Commons