—Emily Dickinson, voluntary recluse and writer of nearly eighteen hundred poems; though she never cared much whether they were published, her family and close friends did (to our great benefit!)
I am beautiful.
I am attractive.
I love myself.
I came out of the womb a diva. All it means is you know your worth as a woman.
—Cyndi Lauper, singer, songwriter, and actress who has won two Academy Awards and been honored with fifteen Academy Award nominations; her songwriting for Broadway’s 2013 hit musical Kinky Boots (which won a total of six Tonys) made her the first solo woman to receive the Tony Award for Best Original Score
The world is wide, and I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
—Frances Willard, an educator and temperance activist who helped found the national Prohibition Party and served as president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; she campaigned for women’s suffrage across the country and traveled the world fighting the international drug trade
My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will. There is might in each.
—Harriet Ann Jacobs, who spent seven years hiding alone in a three-foot-tall nook in her grandmother’s house in order to save her children and herself from the wrongs of those who owned her; after she escaped and returned to her children, who had finally been sent north, she became a nurse and a writer, telling her moving story so that all could learn about the horrors of slavery
I will not be vanquished.
—Rose Kennedy, matriarch of a family made up partially of politicians; she was their anchor and assisted in many of their political (and personal!) victories
I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
—Mae West, actress, playwright, and burlesque performer; she was arrested for her then-scandalous Broadway show Sex, which she wrote, directed, and produced herself
I will succeed.
I believe in myself.
I achieve whatever I put my mind to.
Vinegar he poured on me all his life; I am well marinated; how can I be honey now?
—Tillie Olsen, a groundbreaking fiction author and high school dropout (later awarded nine honorary doctorates!) who often wrote about the lives of women, minorities, and the working poor; she inspired many collegiate-level Women’s Studies programs throughout the United States and beyond
Prudent people are very happy; ’tis an exceeding fine thing, that’s certain, but I was born without it, and shall retain to my day of death the humour of saying what I think.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, letter writer, essayist, and world-traveling poet; her face had been ravaged by smallpox as a child, so when she witnessed smallpox inoculation in Turkey, she jumped at the chance to inoculate her children against smallpox and brought the practice back to her native England
It is indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can’t help being right.
—Judith Martin (a.k.a. “Miss Manners”), author of Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
I just throw dignity against the wall and think only of the game.
—Suzanne Lenglen, the world’s first professional female tennis player; she popularized women’s tennis as a spectator sport
Badass to the Bone:
Suzanne was born in Paris in 1899. As a child, she was frail and suffered from many health problems, including chronic asthma. Tennis, her father decided, would build up her strength and benefit her health. She first tried her hand at the game in 1910, on the family tennis court, and her father began to train her to play competitively. Only four years later, at age fourteen, Lenglen made it to the final of the 1914 French Championships (now the French Open); she lost to reigning champion Marguerite Broquedis, but later that spring won the World Hard Court Championships at Saint-Cloud, Paris, on her fifteenth birthday, making her the youngest person in tennis history to this day to win a major championship.
Lenglen made her Wimbledon debut in 1919, taking on seven-time champion Dorothea Douglass Chambers in the final. The historic match was played before eight thousand onlookers, including King George V and his Queen-Consort, Mary of Teck. Lenglen won the match; however, the young woman’s skill wasn’t the only subject to draw notice and public comment. The media squawked about her dress, which revealed her forearms and ended above the calf; at the time, others competed in body-covering ensembles. The staid British were also shocked to see this French woman-athlete dare to casually sip brandy between sets.
Lenglen dominated women’s tennis singles at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Belgium. On her way to winning a gold medal, she lost only four games, three of them in the final against Dorothy Holman of England. She won another gold medal in the mixed doubles event; in the women’s doubles, she was eliminated in the semifinals but won bronze after the opposing pair withdrew. At Wimbledon, she won the singles championship every year from 1919 to 1925—except in 1924, when health problems forced her to withdraw after winning the quarterfinal. After 1925, no other Frenchwoman would win the Wimbledon ladies’ singles title again until Amélie Mauresmo in 2006. From 1920 to 1926, Lenglen won the French Championships singles title six times and the doubles title five times, as well as three World Hard Court Championships in 1921–1923. Astoundingly, she only lost seven matches in her entire career.
Suzanne Lenglen was the first major female tennis star ever to go pro. Sports promoter C. C. Pyle paid her fifty thousand dollars to tour the US and play a series of matches against Mary K. Browne, who at thirty-five was considered past her best years for tennis—although Browne had made it to the French Championships final that year, she lost to Lenglen and only managed to score one point during the entire match. This was the first time ever that a women’s match was the headliner event of such a tour, even though male players were part of the exhibition as well. When the tour ended in early 1927, Lenglen had won every one of her thirty-eight matches; but she was exhausted, and her doctor advised a lengthy respite from the sport. She decided to retire from competition and set up a tennis school with help and funding from her lover, Jean Tillier. The school gradually grew and gained recognition; Lenglen also wrote several tennis texts in those years.
Lenglen’s talent, verve, and style had changed women’s tennis forever. Before the arc of her brilliant career, very few tennis fans were interested in women’s matches. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978, and many hold her to be one of the best tennis players ever. The following year, the French Open began to award a trophy called the “Coupe Suzanne Lenglen” to the winner of the women’s singles competition. With this trophy, Suzanne Lenglen’s legacy is literally being handed down from champion to champion, as the world watches the skill, athleticism, and excitement of women’s tennis.
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