Abbott, Margaret I.
Golf
b. June 15, 1878, Calcutta, India
d. June 10, 1955
The little-known Abbott was the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and she didn't even know it. It happened during the poorly organized Paris Games of 1900, the second modern Olympics, when even some of the track and field medalists thought they were competing in just another track meet.
Abbott, the daughter of novelist Mary Ives Abbott, had gone to Paris with her mother in 1899 to study art. The following year, she was one of ten women who entered a 9-hole golf tournament. The other women, she light-heartedly told relatives, "apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled for the day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts." Abbott, more sensibly attired, won the tournament with a 47.
In 1902 she married political satirist Finley Peter Dunne, creator of "Mr. Dooley." She never knew she'd won an Olympic event; only recent research has established that the tournament was on the 1900 Olympic program.