Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

680 Women in the Martial Arts
in which kicking was allowed, were also popular. Girls as young as 12
years headed the bills. Cuts were stitched on the spot, and the women often
fought with broken noses, jaws, and teeth. There were occasionally
matches between female boxers and female savate fighters. In 1902, for instance,
a Mademoiselle Augagnier beat Miss Pinkney of England during
such a bout. Pinkney was ahead during the first ninety minutes, but then
Augagnier managed to kick Pinkney hard in the face, an advantage that she
immediately used to send a powerful kick into Pinkney’s abdomen for the
victory.
1889 Female wrestling becomes popular in France and England, with
Masha Poddubnaya, wife of Ivan Poddubny, claiming the women’s title.
Said journalist Max Viterbo of a female wrestling match in the Rue Montmartre
in 1903, “The stale smell of sweat and foul air assaulted your nostrils.
In this overheated room the spectators were flushed. Smoke seized us
by the throat and quarrels broke out.” As for the wrestlers, “They flung
themselves at each other like modern bacchantes—hair flying, breasts
bared, indecent, foaming at the mouth. Everyone screamed, applauded,
stamped his feet” (Guttman 1991, 99–100).
1891 Richard Kyle Fox and the National Police Gazette sponsor a
women’s championship wrestling match in New York City; to prevent hair
pulling, the women cut their hair short, and to keep everything “decent,”
the women wear tights. (Not all matches were so prim, and in 1932, Frederick
Van Wyck recollected some matches of his youth that were between
“two ladies, with nothing but trunks on” [Gorn 1986, 130].) Fox’s
wrestlers include Alice Williams and Sadie Morgan. The venue is Owney
Geoghegan’s Bastille of the Bowery.
1895 Theodore Roosevelt hires the New York Police Department’s
first female employee. The reason was that Minnie Kelly did more work for
less money than did the two male secretaries she replaced. In 1896, Commissioner
Roosevelt also gave uniforms and badges to the women who
processed female prisoners at police stations. Excepting meter maids and
secretaries, police departments used women mainly as matrons and vice detectives
until 1968, when the Indianapolis police pioneered the use of female
patrol officers.
1896 San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Pavilion becomes the first U.S. boxing
venue known to have sold reserved seats to women. (The occasion was a title
bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Sharkey, and Fitzsimmon’s wife
Rose was notorious for sitting ringside and shouting advice to her husband.)
Joseph R. Svinth
See also Women in the Martial Arts: Britain and North America; Women in
the Martial Arts: China; Women in the Martial Arts: Japan