Women Boxers: Actresses to Athletes – The Role of Vaudeville in Early Women's Boxing in the USA

Abstract

This article fills a gap in the very limited literature on women's boxing by examining the gendered space in which women engaged in the sport as participants in saloons, vaudeville theatres and the prize ring. In doing so, they challenged the contemporary gender order and disputed the notion of women as the weak sex. Vaudeville provided women with an opportunity to present physical performances that surpassed the restrictions placed on women within the mainstream middle-class society. This article includes biographical sketches of some of the outstanding female boxers of the era by drawing upon new primary sources and embedding the findings within various gender theories.

Keywords::

• women
• boxing
• USA
• vaudeville
• gender

Notes

^1. For example, Thrasher, “Disappearance”; there are several good web pages on the topic, e.g. http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/blog/?p = 7612.

^2. See in particular Thrasher, “Disappearance,” and the excellent article of Christopher James Shelton who emphasised the skills of Wilkinson-Stokes in mixed martial arts, http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/blog/?p = 7612; see also https://www.facebook.com/Boxologyhistory/posts/408836575913191?stream_ref = 10.

^3. There is much information about women involved in boxing and other forms of fighting in the eighteenth century.

^4. See Heiskanen, The Urban Geography. Exceptions to the negligence are Guttmann, Women's Sports, and Park, “Contesting the Norm.”

^5.Lorber, Paradoxes of Gender; Connell, Gender.

^6.Bourdieu, Distinction.

^7.Krais, “Gender and Symbolic Violence”; Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu; and Thorpe, “Bourdieu.”

^8.Heiskanen, The Urban Geography.

^9.Garraty, The American Nation, 281–4; McMillen, Seneca Falls; Blum et al., The National Experience, 259–61, 483–4; Woloch, “Women's Education”; Brownlee and Brownlee, Women in the American Economy; Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions; and Jones, Daily Life.

^10.Guttmann, Women's Sports.

^11.Adams and Keene, Women of the American Circus; Hedenborg and Pfister, “Écuyères and ‘Doing Gender’.”

^12.Lewis, From Traveling Show.

^13.Hedenborg and Pfister, “Écuyères and ‘Doing Gender’.”; Kibler, Rank Ladies.

^14.Hedenborg and Pfister, “Écuyères and “Doing Gender’.”

^15.Park, “Contesting the Norm”; Todd, “Center Ring.”

^16.Shaulis, “Women of Endurance”; Park, “Contesting the Norm.”

^17.Reel, The National Police Gazette, July 29, 1882, 12; http://www.thelizlibrary.org/undelete/woa-spotlight/02-pedestriennes.html-10.

^18.Sporting and Theatrical Journal, August 16, 1884, 1, 219.

^19.Toulmin, A Fair Fight; Kim, “Fighting Men”; Park, “Contesting the Norm”; and Connell, Gender.

^20.Gems, Boxing, 214–21.

^21.Chicago Tribune, March 13, 1869, quoted in Gems, Windy City Wars, 15; Kim, “Fighting Men.”

^22.Gems, Windy City Wars, 14–5.

^23.Chudacoff, The Age of the Bachelor; see the numerous articles in Reel, The National Police Gazette.

^24.New York Times, March 17, 1876, 8.

^25.Reel, The National Police Gazette, November 22, 187. A Miss Burke is also mentioned as one of the early female boxers in Logansport Pharos-Tribune, September 24, 1892, 7.

^26.http://www.policegazette.us.

^27.Park, “Contesting the Norm.”

^28.Scanlon, A History of Leadville, 114.

^29.Reel, The National Police Gazette, September 24, 1892, 11; see also http://www.fscclub.com/history/fame-championess-e.shtml (accessed June 5, 2014).

^30.Hamilton Journal News, September 24, 1892, 7.

^31. Quoted in New York Herald, February 4, 1879, 5.

^32.Mason City Globe Gazette, December 30, 1955, 14.

^33.Park, “Contesting the Norm.”

^34.Cincinnati Enquirer, March 30, 1883, 2.

^35.Reel, The National Police Gazette, February 1883, 12; Logansport Pharos-Tribune, August 12, 1893, 15.

^36.The Times, Philadelphia, December 6, 1884, 5. As the notice in the Police Gazette is the only one about a boxer named Nellie Stewart, it can be assumed that the Gazette mixed the names and that Hattie Stewart who lived and worked for a time in Norfolk was the champion. See Hargreaves, “Women's Boxing.”

^37. For an extensive report, see also e.g. Warren, “An Outlaw Practice” and the information in the New York State Reporter, New York (State), Courts, Willard Smith Gibbons, Rowland M. Stover. W.C. Little & Company, 1890, 225.

^38. For the fight, see the Buffalo Courier, September 17, 1888, 6; and other papers, e.g. the San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 1888, 1.

^39.Buffalo Courier, September 17, 1888, 6.

^40. Ibid., October 4, 1888, 5.

^41. Ibid.

^42. John G. Floss was the owner of bowling alleys and an official of various sport organisations; see e.g. a report about a bowling congress, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 14, 1896, 1. The two corner men were well-known pugilists, George La Blanche and William Baker.

^43.Logansport Pharos-Tribune, August 12, 1893, 15.

^44.Buffalo Courier, October 4, 1888, 5; see also http://onmilwaukee.com/sports/articles/hattieleslie.html?24620.

^45.Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 21, 1891, 1.

^46.Buffalo Courier, October 4, 1888, 5.

^47.Cincinnati Enquirer, July 22, 1888, 16.

^48.Winnipeg Free Press, September 25, 1890, quoted in http://www.womenboxing.com/NEWS2009/news050509firstchallenge.htm; New York Dramatic Mirror, November 18, 1891, 8.

^49.New York Clipper, June 11, 1892, 6.

^50.Beekman, Ringside, 6.

^51. Her death was announced in many newspapers, e.g. Logansport Pharos-Tribune (Indiana), October 15, 1892, 15.

^52.Omaha Daily Bee, December 28, 1887, 2.

^53. Quoted in http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Hattie-Stewart/10920177.

^54.Reel, The National Police Gazette, September 24, 1892.

^55.Kim, “Fighting Men,” 120; see Winnipeg Free Press, September 25, 1890.

^56. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 21, 1891, 1.

^57.Daily Argus News, June 11, 1895, no page.

^58. Ibid.; see her biography, http://www.newyorkshitty.com/tag/gussie-freeman (accessed June 4, 2014).

^59.Butler, Gender Trouble.

^60.http://www.newyorkshitty.com/tag/gussie-freeman (accessed June 4, 2014).

^61.The Ledge, July 1, 1897, 6.

^62. Ibid.

^63.Galveston Daily News, Sunday, May 30, 1897, 20; San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1897, 9; The Ledge, July 1, 1897, 6.

^64. See the information at http://www.fscclub.com/history/zhened-old2-e.shtml (accessed June 4, 2014).

^65.Galveston Daily News, May 30, 1897, 20; San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1897, 9; The Ledge, July 1, 1897, 6.

^66.http://www.fscclub.com/history/fame-championess-e.shtml (accessed June 4, 2014).

^67.San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1897, 9; February 10, 1897, 8.

^68.Kansas City Daily Gazette, June 29, 1896, 1.

^69. Ibid.

^70.North Adams Transcript, June 29, 1896, 1.

^71.Logansport Pharos-Tribune, February 22, 1897, 6; San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1897, 9.

^72.San Francisco Chronicle, June 30, 1897, 9; Logansport Pharos-Tribune, February 22, 1897, 6.

^73.Topeka Daily Capital, October 2, 1904, 13..

^74.Washington Post, August 31, 1890, cited in Kim, “Fighting Men,” 117.

^75.Atlanta Constitution, February 10, 1895, 6.

^76.New York Times, September 25, 1904, 42.

^77.Kim, “Fighting Men,” 119–20; The Washington Post, March 19, 1913, 7.

^78.New York Times, September 25, 1904, cited in Kim, “Fighting Men,” 117.

^79.Isenberg, John L. Sullivan; see e.g. Daily Capital Journal, February 5, 1916, 9, about “special arrangements” for female spectators.

^80.Kibler, Rank Ladies, 51; Streible, Fight Pictures, 81–90.

^81.The Times, Reading, March 9, 1883, 4; see also the Louisville Courier-Journal, August 19, 1883, 3. The paper presents Jennings as star of the Whalen's Buckingham Theater with Eddie O'Brien.

^82.Daily Commonwealth, December 11, 1883, 2; Cincinnati Enquirer, March 30, 1884, April 1, 1884, 11.

^83.Cincinnati Enquirer, February 12, 1894, 7.

^84.Philadelphia Times, December 6, 1894, 5.

^85.Parsons Daily Sun, June 26, 1885, 4.

^86.St. Paul Daily Globe, October 10, 1886, 3.

^87.Parsons Daily Sun, June 26, 1885, 4.

^88.Logansport Pharos-Tribune, February 22, 1897, 6; The Ledge, July 1, 1897, 6.

^89. The $250 in the San Francisco fight between Mollie Berdan and Jessie Lewis was nearly a year's salary for men; see Park, “Contesting the Norm,” 740.

^90. See e.g. the reports about Hattie Stewart or Hattie Leslie. Both had managers/partners and travelled extensively; they had to deal with the press and they seemed to have been accepted as attractive women.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gerald Gems

Gerald Gems is past president of the North American Society for Sport History and the author of Boxing: A Concise History of the Sweet Science.

Gertrud Pfister

Gertrud Pfister is past president of the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport and past president of the International Sport Sociology Association.