Kathleen Marple Kalb's Blog, page 5

GIMME A SLICE

Apple pie may not be your favorite dessert, but most people like it well enough to eat a slice when offered one. It’s a classic, and beloved in all of its forms. Though, of course, everyone has their favorite – and you do not want to find yourself in the middle of an argument between the crumb-top and double-crust folks. Never mind ice cream versus sharp cheddar cheese.
Apple pie has been a thing for a very long time; we’ve have been eating it since at least the 1300s.
Geoffrey Chaucer, of all people, gets credit for writing down the first recipe, in 1389. But, like many other household staples passed down through the mists of time, it’s fair to assume that unsung women had been making it for a long time before that. Pie actually started as a way to preserve fresh fruit in a portable form. Early crusts weren’t supposed to be especially tasty; some were made of nothing but flour, water, and salt, with the idea that they might not even be eaten at all!
When the British came to the New World, they brought their pie recipes with them and so did other Europeans, including the Dutch and Scandinavians. At first, the local crabapples weren’t much good for pie, but they soon brought over cuttings and seeds from back home. Most of the apples went into mildly hard cider at first, because people needed something safe to drink, and cider was easier to make than the other possibilities, like beer or wine.
Still, once there were apples, apple pie wasn’t far behind.
This is probably the point where people really started caring about the taste of the crust – if you’re scratching out a life on a new continent with limited supplies, you’re not going to waste a crumb.
Nor are you going to feel obligated to save that pie for dessert. Meal times and menus were much different in the Colonial period, and even into the 19th century (another post for another day), and pie made a simple and filling breakfast, or an easy evening bite after a long day’s work. When people did get into the more modern idea of finishing a meal with a sweet, apple pie was sitting right there, looking tasty.
And it was sitting there looking just as wonderful when the advertising and newspaper writers needed a symbol of Americana. The first recorded use of “as American as apple pie” was in 1928, but it was a beloved symbol of the home front for soldiers in both World Wars. By World War II, the boys Over There said flat-out that they were fighting for “mom and apple pie.”
So what did mom put on that pie? Yes, we’ll wade into the cheese versus ice cream argument…just a little. I’m not picking sides, but cheese DOES have seniority; people in New England, especially, have been eating pie with cheddar for centuries. For most folks, ice cream has only been an option since the late 19th century. Still, it quickly became a very popular one. Pie a la mode, after all, translates to “pie in the current fashion.”
At least at my house, where the Professor prefers apple pie to birthday cake, the only bad pie is no pie.

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SMOKY, VAMPY

The Ancient Egyptians did eye makeup so well they ruined it for everyone else for the next several thousand years.
A bit of an exaggeration, but not much.
From Cleopatra’s time until Theda Bara’s, most of the Western world considered major eyeliner an exotic and sexy outlier. Even in times when heavy makeup was the norm, visible eyeliner wasn’t part of the kit.
Heavy liner was so clearly identified with the ancients, and later, with the Middle Eastern cultures along the trade routes, that it just never made it into Western daily makeup.
That doesn’t mean women didn’t enhance their eyes.
While they didn’t have pots of ground lapis-lazuli or malachite on their vanities, ladies definitely had subtler – if not necessarily safe – means. Soot was always popular, whether from a burning twig, or later, inside a lamp. Even later, women would burn down a match, creating a primitive liner pencil.
All always carefully and subtly smudged, especially in the Victorian Era, where the most innocent pink lip-salve might mark one as no lady in some circles. Smudgy eyes weren’t fashionable anyhow, and usually not worth the risk.
Big bright eyes, though, were at some points…and women would drop belladonna into their eyes to dilate the pupils and give a brighter gaze. Everybody who’s ever had a comprehensive eye exam knows how much fun that one was!
Even with the influence of stage greasepaint, burned matchsticks and a little pomade on the lashes were about as far as eye makeup went until the early 20th century…when the Vamp arrived.
The Vamp, the evil sexy woman who lures men to their (exceedingly pleasurable) doom, was a huge silent movie favorite. And she rocked that eyeliner. Sometimes almost raccoon-like circles around her dangerous eyes. Theda Bara, the stage name of one Theodosia Goodman, set the trend playing exotic roles like Cleopatra, and maybe that’s where she got the idea for the liner. Soon, though, heavy liner was showing up in modern movies – and the street – as a sign of wicked sexiness.
Women quickly realized that there was something between Theda Bara’s smudges and nothing at all…and subtle eye makeup became an accepted part of many looks until another Cleopatra drew the heavy lines in the 1960s. Of course, Elizabeth Taylor.
Liner colors would change – and styles would go from the architectural New Wave looks of the 1980s to grunge smudges in the late 90s -- but liner has never really gone away since. And I bet I’m not the only one who has a few really crazy-bright crayons from the height of the mask mandates.
Then, of course, there’s guy-liner. Men wore it loud and proud in Ancient Egypt, but the fellas didn’t put much effort into eye makeup again until the 1980s rock stars. Even now, visible eyeliner on a man is a statement. Honestly, probably a statement most guys who aren’t legendary frontmen can’t pull off – but it’s not my call!

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LONG, DARK...AND DANGEROUS

Mascara is a “one and done” cosmetic for many of us.
A swipe of black – or maybe blue – on the lashes is all it takes to make us look, and feel, awake and ready for the day.
It’s an ancient part of the cosmetic kit…and one with the potential to be really dangerous. After all, you’re putting it practically in your eye!
Like eyeliner (next week’s post) mascara dates back to the Ancient Egyptians, who used everything from burnt almonds and honey to lead and crocodile dung to play up their lashes. Recipes for eyelash enhancers appear in the Kama Sutra, as well as ancient Roman and Persian texts, too.
Fun fact: thick curly lashes were an especially big deal in Rome, because of an old philosopher’s tale. Pliny the Elder claimed excessive sex made the eyelashes fall out, so all the respectable ladies wanted to maintain a healthy fringe!
If that’s not weird enough for you, how about the red eyelashes of the Elizabethan Era? The fashion was set by the Queen, a natural redhead with, yes, red lashes. Which led to wild preparations involving soot and crushed berries. Not mention other toxic substances that could cause lash loss and worse.
Mascara was “out” again for a few centuries after that, though resourceful ladies always came up with a few ways to enhance their eyes. Soot or lampblack mixed with water or some type of salve and carefully brushed on was the favored method by the Victorian era, one of the many under-the-table cosmetics women used in an era that strongly frowned on makeup.
The name “mascara,” by the way, dates to the 19th century French conquest of Algeria. Antimony, a key ingredient, was discovered there.
By the late 19th and early 20th century, the made-up look was coming back, and so were the cosmetics to make it possible. Mascara that we’d recognize today started appearing in the late 1800s, usually in a cake form. Cake mascara still exists – and some makeup artists swear by it, especially when they’re trying for authentic vintage looks.
Mascara really took off with the movies. First, with the starlets who needed all the help they could get in the brutally harsh lights of the early cinema, and then women who wanted to look like them. Hollywood glam sparked a huge appetite for cosmetics at home, and gave the growing industry a huge boost.
Unfortunately, in the 1930s, it was an almost completely unregulated industry. So there was nothing to stop “Lash Lure,” an eyebrow and eyelash dye made with coal-tar aniline dyes. Most women used it without incident, but the few who were allergic suffered horrific blisters, abscesses, and ulcers on their faces and eyes. More than a dozen were blinded…and one even died. The case helped fuel the drive for the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938, which set up the Food and Drug Administration. (The photo of Lash Lure with this post is from the FDA.)
These days, mascara is a safe, standard part of the makeup bag, and you can get in just about any color and style to suit your fancy. Even red, if you’re in an Elizabethan mood!

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RED, BRIGHT...AND BLUE?

Whether you associate it with Taylor Swift, Grace Kelly, or your stylish aunt, simple bright-red lipstick has been a classic since at least Ancient Egypt. It’s a statement look and always has been: I’m here. I’m a woman. And I’m not apologizing for that.
Lip color, bright or neutral, has always been a way for women to make a statement.
It’s a choice.
Before we went down to the drugstore to buy our lippies, women made lip salves at home, and it was up to them, or their servants, to decide whether to add color and how much. Often, that was determined by the fashions of the time.
People have always tried to enhance their appearance, but what they were emphasizing, and how, depended on the time. Really bright lips were sometimes associated with courtesans or other “bad women,” and respectable wives would carefully redden their mouths without going too far.
Not always, though. At the court of Elizabeth I, flaming vermilion-red lip color was practically a requirement. Queen Gloriana never went out without a full face of artifice, and her ladies followed suit.
Red lips usually tracked with makeup trends: if the heavy, stylized look was in, bright rouge was a part of it.
The 19th century, though, was a bit of a makeup desert. It started with the light, natural look of the Regency, a definite reaction to the stiff, powdered 18th century style…and then the Victorians got involved. They were very much from the “good women don’t wear makeup” school, and it wasn’t until the nice ladies realized how much fun actresses were having with greasepaint that things changed.
Lipstick (as it became in the 1910s – see last week’s post!) got redder and more noticeable as the new 20th century continued. By the 1920s, it was the redder the better if you were a flapper, and a good bright shade even if you weren’t. Cosmetic companies made some other shades, like coral or orange, but lipstick stayed primarily red for decades.
The classic red lip really evolved over the middle of the 20th century. By the 1950s, it was associated with both the elegance of Grace Kelly – and the sexiness of Marilyn Monroe. Probably meeting somewhere in the middle around Elizabeth Taylor.
And then came the 1960s.
For the first – but not the last – time, people flirted with all kinds of exotic shades, from white to green to blinding purple. You can see the whole natural brownish 1970s lipstick thing as a reaction to that, and I won’t argue.
A lot of millennials may have started their lipstick career with black – or near-black – lipstick…or the second run through the wild brights that followed around Y2K. And then, no surprise, we hung up our velour sweatsuits and went back to the classics.
There’s no doubt that lip colors follow the fashion cycle. And a lot of us who’d never bother re-doing our wardrobes every year will happily buy the new lip color of the moment, just for a fun little change.
Mine is flaming pink – today, but I still keep thinking about those blues….

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YOU, ONLY BETTER

Women have been looking for ways to redden their lips since the first cave woman realized her berry snack had a side benefit. Ancient ladies from Greece to Egypt always had a pot of some kind of lip-salve, and it often had a red coloring, whether from fruit, flowers – or even crushed insects.
The recipes didn’t really change much over the next couple of millennia. It was usually a heavy oil or tallow preparation – or maybe beeswax and some kind of flower water, but the idea remained the same: a schmear of something to soften the lips and add a bit of color.
During the Renaissance, it was more than a bit of color. With the flamboyant makeup styles of the time (white-lead and egg-white foundation – no kidding!) a vermilion lip was part of the standard look. And sometimes it really WAS a vermilion lip – colored with the same dangerous mercury-sulfide used in paint!
Heavy makeup was definitely out by the nineteenth century, first thanks to the light and natural styles after the French Revolution, and then tangled up with the Victorians’ ideas of artless maidenly purity. By the late 19th century, a “good woman” would have only a face cream for skin health, a bit of powder for same, and pot of tinted lip salve on her vanity…but it would be a light tint, and she’d never put it on in public.
Well, until Sarah Bernhardt, anyhow.
The great actress, like all performers, wore greasepaint onstage. But she liked the look of a red lip and started wearing it offstage. Since she wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet, she soon decided that she’d touch it up wherever and whenever she liked.
It would take a few decades for ordinary women to get comfortable with the idea of public touch-ups, but by the turn of the 20th century, most ladies had no problem with going out with a noticeably reddened lip. And many would have rouge in their bags for a private fix.
That rouge, by the way, was usually in a pot or vial.
Chemists certainly knew how to make a lipstick by then; pomades, perfumes and other things were sold in stick form from the mid-1800s. And there definitely were colored lip-salves available as sticks by the 1890s, though it seems they were being sold as theatrical makeup.
A lady’s rouge, though, was usually a little pot on her dressing table, or packed into a fancy “vanity case,” in her purse, often with rice powder for her face, a mirror, and maybe other small implements. Lipstick may seem more useful to us – it’s what we’re used to -- but cream rouge was very practical, an easily portable way to have lip and cheek color in one little pot.
Lipstick as such didn’t really catch on until the 1910s…and then with a vengeance! Makeup cases were redesigned to include lipsticks – sometimes in the hinge, a style you’ll still see occasionally today, and lipstick became the main form of lip color. So much so that “lipstick” replaced “rouge” as the generic word for lip color.
Ella Shane, you might know, keeps a nice little pot of rosepetal lip-salve on her vanity. But as much as she admires Miss Bernhardt, she’s far too old-fashioned to take it outside. In fact, in her next adventure (her first as a Duchess!) she skips it frequently for the sake of propriety!
Next week – part two of our look at lipstick – with a deep dive into color trends from Queen Elizabeth I to Taylor Swift.

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FRESH ALL OVER

Right about now, all those full-body deodorant ads are starting to sound really good. Late August tests everyone’s hygiene – and preferred form of stink reduction.
But at least we have a bunch of good options, from frequent showers to products scientifically proven to kill smelly bacteria, to medical sweat reducers.
In the 19th century, there weren’t a lot of effective deodorants, and washing was elaborate enough to make it a once-a-day event -- but there was a strong new emphasis on cleanliness. Particularly for the ladies.
August must have been pretty miserable.
Breathable cotton clothes only get you so far if you’re wearing several layers of them. Even with the help of dress shields, which were exactly what they sound like: half-moon-shaped (usually) fabric things that were sewn into the appropriate place in your top, there would still be a lot of sweat out there. Dress shields also came in rubber, but I, for one, don’t even want to imagine what it must have been like to have a chunk of damp rubber stuck to my underarm in 90-degree weather.
And all of that before things started to, shall we say, smell less than daisy-fresh.
The first commercial deodorant, a thick cream with the enchanting name of “Mum,” as in “keep it mum,” was invented in 1888. But it would be decades before people just picked up a stick of something the way we do now. Most folks made or bought some kind of concoction that included perfume to mask the scent of sweat, alum to dry it – and often, an ingredient to discourage the bacteria that make sweat stink.
Late 19th century folks knew just enough to be dangerous.
Terrifyingly, at least some home recipes included carbolic acid. That was a popular disinfectant at the time…not to mention a really good way to get a chemical burn if you used too much of it. Let’s hope most people didn’t.
If you didn’t want to risk a DIY, chances were pretty good your local druggist would have something useful. At the time, local pharmacies made all kinds of concoctions in-house, from patent remedies to cosmetics, and your friendly neighborhood druggist almost certainly had a better handle on how much carbolic acid was too much!
The format varied widely. Sticks showed up fairly early, but other convenient styles took some time: the roll-on wasn’t invented until the 1950s -- inspired by the ballpoint pen, of all things! The deodorant itself could have been anything from a thick cream to a thin liquid.
No matter what it was, it was pretty messy to put on by our standards. You’d have to rub in the cream or use a swab to wipe the liquid on the appropriate spot. Powders were also popular for women, and those aren’t known for staying in one place.
Creams were very common, which may be news to the folks who are selling the hot new full-body deodorants. They’re being marketed as the trendy new thing, and they may indeed be better researched than earlier ones. But the idea isn’t new – as you can see in the ad that goes with this piece. To our modern eyes, the copy and especially the name, are hilarious: “Veto” deodorant?
Just remember, someday, somebody’s going to be snickering about Mando Man Deodorant! (Okay, maybe they are right now!)

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I SHAVED MY LEGS FOR THIS?

It’s my favorite country song title – and one thing a 19th century woman would never have to say!
But, that doesn’t mean women didn’t resort to all kinds of creative, and potentially dangerous, ways to get rid of excess hair that WAS visible.
In the days of floor-length skirts and stockings, it didn’t matter in the least if a woman had hairy legs, and honestly, most of the fellas probably didn’t know to notice. Western men who traveled to parts of the world where women were a lot more into depilating did sometimes write about how amazingly smooth the local limbs were…but they would definitely NOT expect their ladies to take up the fashion.
We can also dispense with any thoughts of the bikini wax. That particular variety of personal landscaping didn’t even show up on the map until the mid-20th century. Some folks probably did neaten up the downstairs a little in the Victorian Era, but they sure didn’t talk about it.
No, if women were worrying about hair, they were probably worried about hair somewhere on their face, whether it was overly energetic eyebrows, a bit of peach fuzz, or a more serious mustache situation. But whatever it was, they probably weren’t shaving it.
There’s a reason they called ‘em cut-throat razors back then. Most men used – or paid a barber to use – one of those big scary blades. Safety razors had been invented…but it wasn’t until the Gillette disposable hit the market in 1903 that they became popular. So if the missus wanted to address her mustache with a razor, she’d have to borrow a blade.
Probably not.
Which leads us to all kinds of depilatories. This could be anything from a relatively mild abrasive – to something used in a tanning factory. Women could be, and sometimes were, injured and disfigured for life by some of these preparations. And since it was before any serious safety regulations, they were just out of luck.
If you think that’s scary, how about radiation? No kidding. In the late 19th century, some doctors did X-ray hair removal. Eventually, the doctors decided it was too dangerous for them, but it continued in some private salons well into the 20th century.
Early electrolysis was also available, and almost as risky as those X rays. Long before the modern understanding of electricity, it could still result in burns and hair growing back. But – this one did get safer with time. Fun fact: a lot of Golden Age movie stars got their perfect hairlines thanks to state-of-the-art electrolysis. Rita Hayworth was NOT born with that widow’s peak!
But back to our 19th century lady glaring at her little mustache. She’s down to two of the things we still rely on today: wax and tweezers. If you control the temperature with wax, you’re not going to do much damage, even if it hurts to rip out the hair. Tweezers take time, but they work, even if they’re fussy and just as painful. Still a small thing compared to permanent disfigurement.
So yes, while we may sometimes question if something – or someone – is worth shaving for, it’s still a vast improvement over what Great-Grandma had!

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WISH YOU WERE HERE

To modern collectors, vintage postcards are a beautiful window into the past. A way to peer back into a former world, and a chance to see things that don’t exist any more.
For the first collectors, though, picture postcards were new and exciting.
Postcards themselves weren’t new.
Early mail services always had a few folks who would scribble something on a card and send it through the post, but at first, they were homemade one-offs and not a standard postal offering. The first official postcard, in fact, was a hand-painted design a British writer mailed to himself in 1840, using a penny stamp.
(Fun fact: the design is a caricature of postal workers, and experts believe the creator, Theodore Hook, intended it as a joke. Nobody’s laughing now; the piece recently sold for more than 31-thousand pounds.)
Cards showed up in the U.S. a few years later, and initially, they were mostly for advertising. Soon, greeting cards became a thing, too, as the cost of printing dropped. Many vintage valentines and Christmas cards are in postcard form.
While souvenir cards were printed for big events several times in the 19th century, the experts date the first true picture postcard to 1893. That’s when the enterprising folks at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exhibition took government-issued penny postcards and printed images of World’s Fair buildings on the blank side. They charged twice the price and sold boatloads of them. In fact, they’re still around, and still viewed as the first collectible postcard.
And the party was on.
Soon, most destinations had postcards, and people were happy to snap them up and send them off with a “Wish you were here.”
The timing was great; postcards became widely available just as the burgeoning middle class was starting to have the money and time to go places. And what better way to celebrate the visit, and spark a little friendly envy, than to send a postcard home?
When the postcards arrived, they were often too special to just read and discard.
Some people kept them in boxes, but many put them in albums.
And few folks were above mailing themselves a few nice postcards for their own album.
A postcard collection was a real status symbol, a statement that you’d been places and seen things, and had friends who’d done the same.
It’s no surprise that Ella Shane has a carefully curated one. If anyone would want to keep a record of her travels and not incidentally her prosperity, it’s our Lower East Side orphan made good as an opera star. Ella’s especially fond of the more exotic cards – San Francisco, the desert, Europe.
Like many others, though, she also cherishes ones from friends and family, even if they just show a generic Staten Island beach.
So when she sits down with the Duke to look through the album in A FATAL OVERTURE, they’re doing a classic courting-couple activity…but there’s a lot more in the room.
For Ella, that postcard album is a record of where she’s been and how far she’s come. And they’re pretty too.

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HIT THE SHOWERS

If there’s one thing almost all of us can agree on, it’s the pleasure of a good hot shower. But for most of human history, showers were rare, cold – and usually outdoors!
Think about your last shower, and you can probably figure out where the idea started: waterfalls. Sometime before human history began, an early cave person wandered under a waterfall and discovered the wonderful feel of water on their skin. Probably about the same time, in a different place with geothermal springs, a different cave person discovered a hot pool of water, and the delicious thrill of a warm soak.
It would take a few thousand years for the running water and the heat to get together in our modern bathrooms.
Upper-class ancient Egyptians, who were well supplied with both imagination and servants, were the first to bring the waterfall home. They had special shower rooms, much like our current bath stalls, with drains in the floor. The showering part, though, was entirely different: it didn’t come from a pipe or a head, but from servants pouring out of huge clay jars. Even if you were all right with making a couple of poor unfortunate people work themselves silly dragging water for – and over – you, there was the whole issue of the staff seeing you buck naked.
Not exactly relaxing.
The Romans, as was their habit, took a much more inventive approach. It still took plenty of servants to make it all happen, but they figured out drainage, piping, and even hot water.
Unfortunately, like so many other things, it all got lost in the Dark Ages.
For about a thousand years, humans were back to waterfalls and the hot spring. People weren’t really filthy during this time period, but they certainly didn’t define clean the way we do. It’s another post for another day, but while being seriously stinky was frowned on, their bar for stink was in a whole different place than ours.
Fortunately for all of us, the Industrial Revolution and the Victorians were coming.
The Victorians had plenty of hangups and sexist ideas, but they were big fans of getting and staying clean. As in “cleanliness is next to godliness.”
The first modern shower was invented in the late 1700s, and by the 1810s, there was even a hot version. It took a few more decades to get reliable plumbing so people didn’t have to keep recycling the dirty water.
Even so, showers were still very much an upper-class pleasure. While indoor plumbing was standard by the end of the 19th century, many families had only one bathroom, and they didn’t use it the way we use ours. It was often treated as kind of a clearing-house, where chamber pots were emptied and water drawn to fill old-fashioned bath basins in individual bedrooms.
In the US, showers became an affordable home luxury item in the 1920s, part of the wave of newfangled treats like toasters and vacuum cleaners. Our British friends had to wait another 40 years until they became widespread. By the 1980s, though, everyone was enjoying a good spritz, and a beautiful bathroom became an integral part of a well-appointed home.
As it still is – which you can see on any home show, with the drooling coverage of heated floors, rainforest heads and walls of warm jets. Cleanliness may or may not be the key to spiritual or moral health, but a good hot shower sure makes anybody’s day!

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THE LADIES' GAME

Women have been competing at the Olympics almost as long as the modern Games have existed. The 1896 Olympics in Athens were male only...but in 1900, women arrived in Paris to compete -- and win.
The first female Olympian – and first female gold medalist! -- was Helene de Pourtales of Switzerland, a member of a winning sailing team.
The only individual female sports that time were tennis and golf, and women distinguished themselves in both. Britain’s Charlotte Cooper won women’s singles tennis, the first female champion. On the golf side, Chicago’s Margaret Abbott and her mother, Mary, both competed in the tournament, and Margaret won.
They’re still the only mother and daughter to compete against each other in the same Olympic event.
Unfortunately, the United States’ first female Olympic gold medalist didn’t go home with a medal, but rather a gilded porcelain bowl. Even worse, neither Abbott nor her family realized she was actually an Olympian. Women’s athletics were so undervalued at the time that Abbott lived and died believing she’d just taken part in an ordinary golf tournament. It wasn’t until an historian combing over the records of early Olympics turned up the truth that the Abbott family found out what a trailblazer she had been.
Later women athletes at least had the minimal dignity of knowing they were part of an Olympic team, though well into the 20th century, and sometimes beyond, they were treated differently than male competitors. Often, they were strictly chaperoned in the Olympic Village, when they were allowed to stay there at all, and held to standards of “ladylike” behavior their male counterparts could never imagine. Sometimes they were sent to official or unofficial charm schools so they could more “suitably” represent their countries.
Their outfits, in and out of competition, drew scrutiny and sometimes, their looks were part of the draw for their events. That, by the way, has not been consigned to the dustbin of history. You may remember the controversy at the last games over some women volleyball players demanding to wear loose shirts and shorts instead of the snug little outfits their committee had picked for them.
The sexism was clear because there was no similar expectation for male athletes. If we’re going to put beautiful fit bodies on display (fine by me, as long as the owners of those bodies don’t mind) it should be ALL beautiful fit bodies, not just those belonging to one gender.
Women athletes weren’t just treated differently. For most of Olympic history, they were even spoken of differently. Well into the 21st century, some sports were still called “ladies” competitions. Figure skating, for example, only became a WOMEN’s competition at the 2022 Games.
Even when women made history, there were questions. The first Women’s Marathon, in Los Angeles in 1984, was a very big deal, even though women had been running marathons for years. But not just for the fossils who didn’t think they belonged in the Olympics. A whole generation of little girls was inspired by watching the women cross the finish line and defy expectations.
I was one of them. I remember sitting in my living room in Western Pennsylvania, seeing those strong, fast, determined women, thinking: “Wow. If they let girls do that, maybe we really CAN do anything!”
It's this year's athletes’ turn to shine now...and to show today’s girls yes, we do indeed do that. Sometimes the Olympic victory really does lie in the noble competition.

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