1900 - Physical Education instructors strongly oppose competition mong women, fearing it will make them less feminine.
1902 - The split skirt for horseback riding is introduced by Mrs. Adolph Landenberg of Saratoga Springs, New York.
1910 - Dr. Celia Duel Mosher debunks several popular myths of female health, including one claiming women breathe differently than men, which makes them unfit for strenuous excercise.
1910 - Annette Kellerman of Australia is arrested for swimming in Boston Harbor in an "indecent" one-piece swimsuit for exposing her legs.
1914 - The American Olympic Committee formally opposes to women's athletic competition in the Olympics, except the floor exercise, in which women are only allowed to wear long skirts.
1917 - The American Physical Education Association forms a Committee on Women's Athletics to draft standardized, separate rules for women's collegiate field hockey, swimming, track and field, and soccer.
1920 - The skimpy fashions of the 1920's puts a new emphasis on athletic bodies and narrow the gap between health and glamour. Advertisers, like Grape-Nuts, say, "Grandmother went bathing - girls like Molly go in to swim."
1920 - Suzanne Lenglen of France traded the traditional tennis garb for a short, pleated skirt, sleeveless blouse, and matching sweater at the Summer Olympics. Winning two gold medals and one bronze medal, she became the first female celebrity athlete.
Suzanne Lenglen
1921 - The National Women's Athletic Association is organized.
1922 - The National Amateur and Athletic Federation (NAAF) is founded, committed to boys and girls being on an "equal footing with the same standards, the same program, and the same regulations."
1922 - "Women as Athletes" appears as a heading in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature.
1923 - Twenty-two persent of US colleges have varsity sports teams for women.
1924 - The Sportswoman magazine is published; it continues until 1936.
1931 - Lili de Alvarez shocks the public by playing Wimbledon in shorts instead of the traditional longish, hampering dress.
1933 - Women who attend boxing matches are comdemned by Pope Pius XI. He states that it isn't possible to preserve the "dignity and grace peculiar to women" when the "admire spectacles or brutal violence."
1943 - In its June 14th issue, Time estimates there are 40,000 semi-pro women's softball teams in the US.
1944 - Ann Curtis, swimmer, becomes the first woman to win the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award, presented by the Amateur Athletic Union every year since 1930. The Sullivan Award is given to the athlete who, "by his or her performance, example and influence as an amateur, has done the most during the year to advance the cause of sportsmanship."
Ann Curtis
1949 - Wilson Sporting Goods agrees to sponser the Ladies Professional Gold Association (LPGA).