Margaret Abbott

Born in Calcutta, Abbot was the daughter of Charles and Mary Abbott.[3] Charles died when Margaret was very young and after his death, Mary moved the family to Boston.[3]

When Abbott was a teenager, her mother became the literary editor of The Chicago Herald and the family then moved to Illinois.[3] After moving to Illinois, she and her mother were members of the Chicago Golf Club. After she took up the game, she was winning championships at local tournaments and was reported to have a two handicap.[3]

Mary and Margaret Abbott lived in Paris from 1899 to 1902.[4] While in Paris, Mary researched a travel guide and Margaret studied art with Rodin and Degas.[3]

At the 1900 Paris Olympics, 22 women competed out of a total 997 athletes.[5] It was the first time women were allowed to compete in the Olympic Games.[6] The 1900 Olympics stretched over six months and were something of a sideshow of the Paris Exhibition.[5] The events were referred to as the Championnats Internationaux, or International Championship, instead of the Olympic Games.[7] The women's golf tournament was held on October 4, 1900 at a nine-hole course at Compiègne, north of Paris.[8] Golf Illustrated referred to the medal event as "The international golf competition recently held... in connection with the Paris Exhibition."[9] The games were organized and publicized so poorly that many competitors, including the Abbotts, did not realize that the events they entered were part of the Olympics.

Historical research did not establish that the game was on the Olympic program until after Abbott's death in 1955, so she never knew it.[3] Additionally, Abbott's victory was not well known until a University of Florida professor and member of the Olympic Board of Directors, Paula Welch, researched the golfer and began to put together pieces of Abbott's life. She examined newspaper articles that mentioned Abbott's successes in various golfing competitions in an attempt to gain more information. She also located Abbott's children and informed them of their mother's victory.[10]

Part of the reason Abbott was not widely known was due to the fact that she had not been an official member of the U.S. Olympic team when it was organized in the United States. This was due to the fact she was residing in France and studying art while her mother was working there as a writer. Abbott competed because she played golf and happened to be in France.[3][5] Her mother also competed in the event. In the 1890s, Abbott initially learned to play the sport as a member of the Chicago Golf Club where her mother, also a member, played the sport.[5]

She won the Olympics with a 9-hole score of 47.[8] Abbott was awarded a porcelain bowl for first place in golf.[11] The 1900 Games were the only Olympics at which winners received valuable artifacts instead of medals.[12] Metal prizes were not awarded at those games, an anomaly in the history of the modern Olympic events.

All the competitors played in long skirts and fashionable hats,[3] but according to Abbott, some "apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled for the day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts."[4]

Mary Abbott also entered the competition. She shot a 9-hole score of 65 and finished tied for seventh.[6][13] This was the only time in Olympic history that a mother and daughter competed in the same sport in the same event at the same Olympics.[5]

Women's golf would not be seen again at the Olympics until the 2016 Games in Rio.[3]

Margaret Abbott married the writer Finley Peter Dunne on December 10, 1902. They had four children together: Finley Peter Dunne Jr., Peggy Dunne, Leonard Dunne, and Phillip Dunne, who later became a noted screenwriter. Abbott continued to play golf as she helped raise her children.[3] Abbott died at age 76 on June 10, 1955 in Greenwich, Connecticut.[3]

In 1996, Abbot was the featured athlete of the 1900 Olympic Games in the official Olympic program of the Atlanta games.[13]

In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.[3]

• Margaret Abbott at databaseOlympics.com (archived)
• Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Margaret Abbott". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020.