Woman With Basketball by Carol Aus

Woman with BasketballCarol AusNovember 20, 1909

Dr. James Naismith is credited with inventing basketball in 1891, and apparently it didn’t take long for the ladies to try their hand at the sport. A Norwegian artist named Carol Aus (1868-1934), about whom little is known, painted this young player for a 1909 Post cover.

Woman Playing Tennis by George Brehm

Woman Playing TennisGeorge BrehmAugust 3, 1907

We have plenty of cover art showing a pretty lady posing with a tennis racket or other sports equipment, but an action shot like this tennis player makes a person wonder how the artist did it. A person might also wonder how the lady was so active in a long skirt. This is from 1907.

Lady Fishing by Harrison Fisher

Lady FishingHarrison FisherAugust 16, 1902

We have dozens of covers depicting the art of fishing, the first of which was Grover Cleveland fishing in 1901. The second, in 1902, was of a lady reeling one in! Harrison Fisher was a big name in Post covers, doing nearly 80 between 1900 and 1915.

The Finals and Alice Gray by Pete Fountain

The Finals and Alice GrayPete FountainMarch 21, 1903

We have numerous depictions of the great game of golf, also. This is one of the earliest, from 1903. Maybe they couldn’t vote, but women could certainly golf…and fish, hunt, play tennis, basketball and baseball.

Woman Archer by J.J. Gould

Woman ArcherJJ GouldJune 1, 1907

This is another action painting. Early Post artist J.J. Gould went for verisimilitude in this one from 1907. The lady looks like she knows what she’s doing.

Woman on Horseback by Philip R. Goodwin

Woman on HorsebackPhilip R. GoodwinJune 9, 1906

Hundreds of covers depict a lady reading, holding flowers or a fan, or simply looking lovely in a beautiful gown. This 1906 cover shows many of the fair sex were made of sterner stuff.

Classic Covers: Women in Sports in the 1900s The Saturday Evening Post

It was twenty-two years ago that I stopped off between trains to watch a high school basketball game at Plymouth, Indiana, and wound up—when the regutar official failed to show up—being pressed into service as referee. Since then, averaging fifty games a year from crossroads high schoots through Big Ten games and seven Indiana state-final tournaments, I’ve blown my whistle about 30,000 times and run about 3000 miles on hardwood floors. But I still haven’t seen everything. There’s no limit to the things that can happen in a basketball game.

There was the lowly last-minute sub who dashed in determined to save the day, only to find, when he peeled off his sweat pants, that he had neglected to put on his playing trunks. Once an overwrought boy rushed up to me and insisted in all seriousness that the other team was using seven men. And I’ll never forget the time our own dean, acting as timekeeper, thrust his gun under the table to end a game, and blew a hole through his new hat.

Before one 1934 state tournament battle, a coach asked the other official and myself to keep a sharp eye on the opposing team. “They have a trick of knocking the ball out of a man’s hands as he gets ready to put it in play from out of bounds,” he said, “to give themselves time to cover up.”

If so, a technical foul should be called. Not being given to pre-game statements of policy, however, we just told the coach to wait and see.

Right off the bat, the ball went out of bounds. Sure enough, a player brought it up to the side line to throw it in, and swipe! the ball was batted from his hands. Dutifully, we blew our whistle and slapped on a technical foul. There was juat one detail that wasn’t according to the scenario. The boy who committed the foul was on the team of the coach who had done all the squawking before the game.

Hoosier Hysteria in 1942 The Saturday Evening Post