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Alice Tepper Marlin with the gold Woodin
Singles Cup. Thanks to the ITHF for
showing the cups and permission to post photo (by JT Marlin). |
The ITHF led us on a one-hour tour arranged for Portsmouth Abbey School alumni attending our 60th reunion.
The tour was ably led by ITHF docent Liz Morancy, who was a fount of information about tennis history.
The ITHF wisely encourages photos (how else can people learn what a great place it is to visit?), but does not allow videos, or taking photos with flash.
The Solid-Gold Woodin Cups
By special advance arrangement, after the tour, Alice and I were taken backstage, upstairs to the Information Research Center that houses the museum’s library, archives, and staff offices. The Curator of Collections, Nicole Markham then kindly showed us the Woodin Gold Cups, which were brought from a secure place for the occasion.
These trophies were awarded in 1926-1949 by the Maidstone Club, East Hampton, N.Y., in an annual invitational tournament for women. Top-ranked women players were invited to come to East Hampton to compete on the Maidstone Club grass courts for the cups.
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| The smaller Woodin Doubles Cup is one of two, each valued in 1926 at $2,000 ($30,000 today). The larger Singles Cup may be worth $100,000. |
They were the only solid-gold cups offered as prizes in any tennis tournament, men's or women's.
The pineapple-topped Wimbledon gold cups for men, for example, are not solid gold—they are sterling-silver cups with gilding. Women champions are awarded sterling-silver plates that have some gilding.
In the photo that leads off this post, Alice Tepper Marlin holds in her cloth-gloved hands the gorgeous gold cup with a portrait of William McChesney Martin (ITHF Hall of Fame Class of 1982) in the background.
It's appropriate to note Martin's portrait because when cup donor Will Woodin became Secretary of the Treasury in 1933 under FDR, he was also ex officio Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. This was Martin's position (by appointment, not ex officio; the law was changed during FDR's long administration) when I was an economist at the Fed in Washington in 1964-66.
Martin became Honorary Chairman of the ITHF. He was married to Cynthia, daughter of Dwight Davis, founder of the Davis Cup, the first major international tennis cup. Martin was, by the way, the longest-serving Fed Chairman ever (Alan Greenspan is in second place).
The Genesis and Genius of the Gold Cups
Under the challenge-cup terms of the Woodin Cup, it was loaned to the victors for a year. There would be three winners each year, one singles winner and (naturally) two doubles winners.
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| When Childe Hassam was visiting East Hampton, he made sketches of Helen Wills preparing for the Woodin Cup play at Maidstone. Source: ITHF. |
The Maidstone Club, through the Woodin Cup, became a major facilitator of gender equality in tennis. The support of the club and its members, who provided lodging and other in-kind assistance to the female tennis players, helped women's tennis attract an audience and therefore enabled the organizational apparatus that made women's tennis a permanent fixture.
Woodin Cup winners who went on to become Grand Slam champions include Alice Marble, Helen Hull Jacobs, Molla Mallory and Helen Wills [later Moody]. All of them are also members of the ITHF. Marble was inducted in 1964; Jacobs in 1962; Mallory in 1958; and Wills in 1959. Jacobs and Wills were fierce opponents, whose games were called "the battle of the Helens".
Woodin Cup winners who went on to become Grand Slam champions include Alice Marble, Helen Hull Jacobs, Molla Mallory and Helen Wills [later Moody]. All of them are also members of the ITHF. Marble was inducted in 1964; Jacobs in 1962; Mallory in 1958; and Wills in 1959. Jacobs and Wills were fierce opponents, whose games were called "the battle of the Helens".
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| Helen Wills Sketch, 1924. Source: ITHF. |
Famed artist Childe Hassam made many sketches of Helen Wills Moody. Three of them are in the ITHF. Two of them are shown here.
Spectators were drawn to the sport as the skills of women tennis players grew. The original long-skirted women's tennis outfits, which hampered play and made women’s tennis a slower game, were reduced in length, allowing women greater freedom to run and return the ball. Many of the early outfits used in women's tennis are on display at the International Tennis Hall of Fame; one of them features a tennis costume that looks like a ballet tutu. Helen Wills often wore a knee-length sailor suit. Charlie Chaplin was once asked what the most beautiful thing was that he ever saw. He answered: “The movement of Helen Wills playing tennis.”
First Ending: The Third-Time Winning of the Gold Cups
The Woodin Cups had two endings and a new beginning.
The first ending was in 1949, when the cups were won outright. Louise Brough won both the Singles and the Doubles cups for the third time with the same doubles partner, Margaret Osborne duPont, although the record is confusing because of Osborne's marriage and name change between the first and second tournaments.
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| Helen Wills Sketch, 1926. Source: ITHF. |
Louise Brough Clapp donated her two golden Woodin trophies to the Museum in 1997. She died in 2014.
After 1949, the golden Woodin Cups at the Maidstone Club were replaced by three silver ones by the eldest child of Will and Nan Woodin, Anne Woodin Miner.
These silver invitational Woodin Cups were presented annually for six years, until 1955. Anne Miner's son Charles (usually called Charlie, like his father) and her daughter-in-law Maisie took over from their mother, along with fellow Maidstone member and cousin Anne Gerli. Maisie Miner was born Mae Hoffman in Charlotte, North Carolina and grew up in the south until she married Charlie, whom she met while he was training at a U.S. Army Air Forces base in the south during World War II.
These silver invitational Woodin Cups were presented annually for six years, until 1955. Anne Miner's son Charles (usually called Charlie, like his father) and her daughter-in-law Maisie took over from their mother, along with fellow Maidstone member and cousin Anne Gerli. Maisie Miner was born Mae Hoffman in Charlotte, North Carolina and grew up in the south until she married Charlie, whom she met while he was training at a U.S. Army Air Forces base in the south during World War II.
The Color Bar and the Second Ending of the Cups (The Althea Gibson Story)
The ending of the gold cups has a simple explanation. They were won outright.
The ending in 1955 of the silver cups that replaced the gold ones has a more complex, and historically more important, explanation.
Tennis was created in the United States as a club sport, and was therefore inherently off limits to African Americans. As suffragist women campaigned for the right to vote, African-American women became more aggressive in seeking their rights.
Although white women played tennis with their spouses at the clubs, and therefore had ready access to the tennis courts for competitive rounds, the same was not true for African-American women.
The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority may be considered the beginning of the effort to lower the color bar. It was founded in 1908 at Howard University as the first Negro Sorority. One of the founders was Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885-1937), and she happened to be a pretty good tennis player (http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=12/28/2006). Although the AKA Sorority in its early years tried to avoid political activism, a significant portion of the leadership broke away in 1913 to form the Deltas, who joined the suffragist march led by Inez Milholland (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tepper-marlin/the-idea-of-a-womens-marc_b_2851100.html).
In 1917, Slowe won the first tennis tournament open to Negro women, the American Tennis Association's first tournament. She and the Association helped pave the way for Althea Gibson to come to tennis prominence a quarter-century later.
Gibson was born in tiny Silver, in Clarendon County, South Carolina, near Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Gibson's family moved to New York City to improve their access to good jobs. Young Gibson became a star paddle-tennis and basketball player and adapted easily from these games to win at the Harlem River Tennis Courts. She started winning the American Tennis Association tournaments, won a sports scholarship to Florida A&M, and won the ATA women's singles championship every year from 1947 to 1956. (Source: https://www.tennisfame.com/hall-of-famers/inductees/althea-gibson.)
The ending in 1955 of the silver cups that replaced the gold ones has a more complex, and historically more important, explanation.
Tennis was created in the United States as a club sport, and was therefore inherently off limits to African Americans. As suffragist women campaigned for the right to vote, African-American women became more aggressive in seeking their rights.
Although white women played tennis with their spouses at the clubs, and therefore had ready access to the tennis courts for competitive rounds, the same was not true for African-American women.
The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority may be considered the beginning of the effort to lower the color bar. It was founded in 1908 at Howard University as the first Negro Sorority. One of the founders was Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885-1937), and she happened to be a pretty good tennis player (http://ivy50.com/blackhistory/story.aspx?sid=12/28/2006). Although the AKA Sorority in its early years tried to avoid political activism, a significant portion of the leadership broke away in 1913 to form the Deltas, who joined the suffragist march led by Inez Milholland (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tepper-marlin/the-idea-of-a-womens-marc_b_2851100.html).
In 1917, Slowe won the first tennis tournament open to Negro women, the American Tennis Association's first tournament. She and the Association helped pave the way for Althea Gibson to come to tennis prominence a quarter-century later.
Gibson was born in tiny Silver, in Clarendon County, South Carolina, near Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began. Gibson's family moved to New York City to improve their access to good jobs. Young Gibson became a star paddle-tennis and basketball player and adapted easily from these games to win at the Harlem River Tennis Courts. She started winning the American Tennis Association tournaments, won a sports scholarship to Florida A&M, and won the ATA women's singles championship every year from 1947 to 1956. (Source: https://www.tennisfame.com/hall-of-famers/inductees/althea-gibson.)
Long before Arthur Ashe came on the scene in men's tennis, Gibson became a leading player. She was the first African-American of either gender to win the women's singles trophy at both the U.S. National Championship, in 1950, and Wimbledon, in 1951. The only comparable U.S. predecessor in breaking through the color barrier in spectator sports was Jackie Robinson in baseball.
Given the fact that an uprooted southern lady was closely involved in decisions about the Woodin Cup in the 1950s, it should not be surprising that Gibson was not invited to play at Maidstone, which was not as unanimously ready to pioneer in reducing barriers to competition on the racial front as it was on the gender front.
However, many Maidstone members who were aware of Gibson's extraordinary tennis skills favored inviting her to play at Maidstone and some offered to provide her with a place to stay in their homes.
The intra-club controversy in the mid-1950s over inviting her might well have been decided in favor of Gibson, had there not been another, economic consideration. The costs to the Maidstone Club of remaining in the fast-growing professional tennis circuit were rising. Once the Maidstone invitational tournament for women started to divide the club membership, the controversy was a catalyst for ending it.
Althea Gibson was not daunted by her rejection by the Maidstone Club. She proved herself a star within the next two years. She won:
The intra-club controversy in the mid-1950s over inviting her might well have been decided in favor of Gibson, had there not been another, economic consideration. The costs to the Maidstone Club of remaining in the fast-growing professional tennis circuit were rising. Once the Maidstone invitational tournament for women started to divide the club membership, the controversy was a catalyst for ending it.
Althea Gibson was not daunted by her rejection by the Maidstone Club. She proved herself a star within the next two years. She won:
- the women’s singles and doubles French Nationals in 1956,
- the Australian Nationals in women's doubles in 1957,
- the single women’s at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals in 1957-1958,
- the women’s doubles at Wimbledon in 1956-1958,
- mixed doubles at the U.S. Nationals in 1957, and
- the title of top-ranked woman player in the world in 1957.
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| International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee (1973) Althea Gibson. She broke through the color bar, 1951-57. Source: ITHF. |
By the end of the 1958 season, Gibson had won 58 combined singles and doubles titles. She had compiled an impressive 53-9 record at the majors (16-1 at Wimbledon; 27-7 at the U.S.; 6-0 at the French; 4-1 at the Australian) and had been a member of the 1957-1958 Wightman Cup teams, helping the team win a championship in 1957.
Robert Ryland, who was playing tennis at the same time as Gibson and became coach to Venus and Serena Williams, said that Gibson would probably have beaten the Williams sisters. Certainly, he said, Martina Navratilova "couldn't touch her.” He considers Gibson one of the greatest tennis players that ever lived.
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| Women's Tennis Costumes on Display at the ITHF. One in front looks like a ballet dancer's tutu. |
In 1958, however, Gibson abruptly retired from tennis. She couldn’t afford to keep playing tennis under the rules of the day. There wasn’t much money to be made in professional women’s tennis.
The record suggests that women's professional tennis was a stepchild to men’s tennis. The running of the tournaments and governance of the sport was dominated by men, resulting in a lack of attention to equal treatment of men and women.
Gibson's solution to her financial needs was to turn to professional golf. In 1964, at age 37, she became the first African-American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.
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| Our docent Liz, in front of a case of ancient cans of tennis balls. |
However, the money was still not enough to pay her bills. She struggled to make ends meet towards the end of her life when she was widowed. Her friends periodically took up collections for her.
The New Silver Cups
Following the death of Will Woodin's granddaughter Anne Gerli in 2016, the Maidstone Club reinstituted cups for women's tennis, after a hiatus of six decades.
Three new silver cups were donated by Gerli's three daughters for intramural women's tennis at Maidstone (https://bit.ly/2NPj1qA).
Thanks to the ITHF for arranging an exciting visit, especially to the docent, Liz Morancy, and Curator, Nicole Markham, who showed us the Woodin gold cups and provided helpful comments on the history of the gender and color barriers in tennis.
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