ALTON - The Olympics has been held in Paris, France, three times now: 1900, 1924 and 2024. In 1924, athletes from the United States won 99 medals in all, 45 of them gold. Finland came second in the medal count, with 37 total, 14 gold.
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Americans picked up gold medals in boxing, rugby, shooting, swimming, diving, track and field (including a gold in the long jump by William DeHart Hubbard, the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event), rowing and gymnastics. But they swept gold in tennis. The winner of the women’s singles match was Helen Wills of California, and Altonians were completely enamored by her. Wills had been a tennis phenomenon for years at this point, and an article in the Alton Evening Telegraph in 1922 described her playing and personality. “This is NOT a flapper story, though the heroine, Helen Wills, is just 16 years old, the approved flapper age. This young person is very un-Scott Fitzgerald. She doesn’t wear her hair bobbed, goes to bed early, speaks perfectly understandable English, gives her father credit for being a pretty smart man though she can beat him at tennis, is always chaperoned by her mother, and likes it. So, you see, no chance for a flapper angle…she’s being hailed as the coming champion and referred to as the girl wonder."
By 1924, Wills was the women’s national champion and a favorite for the Olympics. She won gold in women’s singles and in women’s doubles (with Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman). It was the last Olympics where tennis was a medal event until the sport returned at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. But Wills went on to win 31 titles overall (19 in singles, 9 in doubles and 3 in mixed doubles) at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
In the 1922 flapper article, Wills is quoted, “I expect always to have time for tennis, but not to let it interfere with my career. I want to be an artist or a singer.” She actually managed to combine her love of tennis and her love of art. Wills wrote a manual, “Tennis”, in 1928, and drew all of the illustrations herself. She also authored an autobiography, “Fifteen-Thirty: The Story of a Tennis Player” (1937), and a mystery, “Death Serves an Ace” (1939, with Robert Murphy), as well as articles for various national magazines. Wills painted all of her life, and her work was even part of the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. In 1959, she was named to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She died January 1, 1998, in Carmel, California.
Sources
Agence de presse Meurisse. Agence photographique (commanditaire). "Miss Moody Wills, avec ses raquettes (portrait à 3 m).” Paris: diff. par l'Agence Meurisse, 1932. Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9030336s.r=moody%20wills?rk=193134;0
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Helen Wills." Encyclopedia Britannica, April 16, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Helen-Wills.
“Miss Wills is Olympics Star.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), July 19, 1924.
“Success at 16, but Miss Wills is no Flapper.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), September 02, 1922.
Underwood & Underwood. “Victorious Olympic team members return aboard the S.S. America ...”, 1924. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-95787 https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002711211/
Wills, Helen. 1928. Tennis. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.
“Olympic Games Paris 1924.” International Olympic Committee, 2024. https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/paris-1924
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