The Sunday Oregonian., August 13, 1922, Magazine Section, Image 85

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VOL. XLI
PORTLAND, OltEGON. SUNDAY MORNING. AUGUST 13, 1922
NO. 33
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Catherine Davis, a Seranlon
(Pa.) girt high jamper. clearing
the bar in practice. She's also
a crack baseball player.
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In All the World the Story Is the Same; and
Even Though Some Physical Tramers.Say
That It's Bad for Themthe Girls Are in
for Track and Field Athletics, Fencing
Tug of War, and Even the Ancient
and Exciting Sport of Javelin
Throwing K; ; r?
Germany is training an army of women ath
letes. The picture shows Berlin high school
girls preparing with folk dancing for the big
athletic meet at Spandaa.
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TAi graceful poise of Miss Kath
erine Agar of Chicago, record
holder . for two-handed javelin
throw, suggests a reason why
she's champion.
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-Maybelle Gilliland of Leonia, N. J., has been chosen to represent
'7 ' America on the track team at the .international athletic meet for
; " women next week at Pershing stadium, Paris.
IN LESS than 50 year the girl -who
swooned at the sight of blood has
been replaced by the girl who drives
her own car. rides her own horse and
hoes her' own row. The gentle woman
no longer goes in for attacks of "the
vapors"; she no longer holds all forms
of physical actirity unmaidenly. The re
Terse Is trne with a Tengeance.
Dr. Frederick A. Woll, head of physical
training at the College of the City of
New York, said recently that the modern
girl had gone mad OTer athletics. This,
he regarded as not altogether an unmixed
blessing. For while it was excellent, for
the women and for the race, that girls
should be paying so much attention to
the derelopment of their bodies, be didn't
beUere that the more Tlolent forms of
athletics wonld erer do women any good.
But whether for good or for tI1, the
modern girl Is certainly a partisan of the
strenuous lit. Proof of this may be
found by gUnrir.g t any sporting page.
It is further erldent In the fact that tha
biggest athletic erent of 1922 will be a
purely woman's affair.
This erent the first international
track meet tor women will be held in
Pershing stadium at Paris next week.
Women athletes from all over the world
will compete and the United States will
send a delegation, headed by Florieda
Batson of New York and New Orleans,
that will be composed of representatives
from every state. The date that marks
this event will be important In history.
Miss Batson, captain of the team, has
proportions that closely approach physi
cal perfection. She Is a Smith college
girl. Is blue-eyed, and Just 20. The tape
reveals her measurements as follows:
Height. 5:4; weight. 117 pounds; right
arm bleep, 9 1-18; left arm bleep, 12;
right arm bicep doubled. 111-16; left
arm arm bicep doubled. 10; right fore
arm and left forearm. 9 Vi ; right and left
wrist. 64; neck. 12 94; waist, 25; hips,
34; right and left thighs, 18;'knees, 13;
calf, 12; ankles. 7. She says she
got these proportions tycm systematic
exercising.
Preliminary events held all over the
United States served to emphasize the
part played by athletics In the lives of
modern women. Not only have a quan
tity of first rate women athletes been
brought to the fore, but the number of
women who go in for sports proved
amazingly large. Nor is this interest In
athletics confined to one part of the
country.
In the south, where the tradition of
luxury and ease for women is strongest,
quite as many sound athletes proportion
ate to the population were brought forth
as in any other section. And it may be
stated in this connection that Alexa Stirl
ing, the present Metropolitan golf cham
pion of New York and former champion
of America, was reared and learned all
ber golf in Georgia.
Women entered athletics for the most
part through swimming. Twenty years,
ago, when women were still supposed to
scream at the sight of blood, swimming,
parties were social events almost entirely.
Male swimmers would take their wives,
sisters and sweethearts along to make up
an appreciative audience. Occasionally
one of the girls ventured into the water
to "learn swimming." But as the same
girl, would continue to learn swimming
for three or four years, it was generally
concluded that she and all like her
were interested more in their instructors
than in getting results.
After a while, though, women began to
take swimming seriously. The establish
ment of Y. W. C. A. buildings containing
swimming pools did much to stimulate
the love for swimming in women. For
there they could go about the business
of learning with a serious mind and with
out any men about to laugh at their ap
pearance or lack of skill.
American Swimming Supremacy.
Meanwhile, of course, women were
achieving a new athletic freedom in all
occidental countries, with the result that
at the last Olympic meet in Antwerp
there was a gathering of water nymphs
such as the world had never seen before.
American supremacy was easily estab
lished and held. Such swimmers as
Ethelda Blelbtrey, Helen Wainwright,
Charlotte Boyle, Aileen Riggin, Alice
Lord and many others represent perfec-'
tion in physical development because of
their syimmlng and have rolled up many
brilliant records. -
Now women are crowding men in all
departments of sport. Even such ex
clusively male games as football and'
baseball are opening up to women, while
basketball became . a girl's game a long
time ago.
The modern woman's keenness for
sport has, in fact, led her into such high
ly specialized sports as fencing, boxing
with the feet, javelin throwing, ski jump
ing and the like.
According to experts, women should
eventually . become better fencers than
men. Already one woman is threaten
ing the supremacy of the male fencers in
America. She is Miss Adeline Gehrig, a
New York stenographer, who, in her .
leisure- time, became champion woman
fencer of the United States.
When Miss Gehrig was a very young
child she longed for activity and free
dom, but her elders discountenanced the
idea. They didn't consider it good train
ing for a young woman. But she
climbed trees and ran Taces all the same
and her friends and neighbors rebuked
her by calling her a tomboy. When she
grew up, though, she had a well-trained
body and was not slow in taking her
place high among the American women
athletes.
Her entry into fencing was accidental.
She happened to be handling a foil in
the presence of an instructor at the New
York Fencing club. He came over and
urged her to take instructions, saying
that she seemed to know instinctively
the correct movement of wrist and arm.
She took his advice and has been cham
pion of America for the past two years.
Recently Miss Gehrig won the title of;
- all-round champion athlete in a meet '
held at Chicago.
But it is not merely the specialist and
. the champion who is mad about athletics.
It is true of the great majority of
women in America and England and to a
less extent in other European countries.
Nor are they contented to stick to
tennis and golf. ' Those who are not do
ing distance swimming are playing polo,
basketball, handball or going for Mara
thon running and other track athletics.
At a recent meet held at Brighton
Beach, New Tprk, for the purpose of
making final selections for the team that
will represent America in Paris, a num
ber of hurdling and jumping records
were established. Several New York
athletic trainers who saw the meet de
clared that such finely developed women
had never before been seen in history
even in the days of the old Greek gym
nasium, when women took exercises
along with the men.
It has been suggested that the great
improvement in records made by women
athletes during the past few years Is due
to the gradial overthrow of traditional
restraint ingrafted by the inherent fear
of being "unrefined," "unwomanly" or
"like a tomboy." They have adopted the
regulation clothes in every sport now.
In England girls run at track meets in
regulation running skirts and pants.
Miss Dorothy Bough of Temple Uni
versity, Philadelphia, uses that costume
iCuncluded on Fat) 2.)