A History of Women's Boxing

by Malissa Smith

  As an example of the Police Gazette’s coverage of Hill’s promotions as early as 1880, it announced that Miss Libbie Ross was crowned a female boxing champion in her win over Carrie Edwards at Henry Hill’s. Ross went on to a career as a leading female pugilist, appearing on the stage and touring the country in concert saloons and theaters not unlike Harry Hill’s. She ended up as a featured player at the City Hall Theater in Leadville, Colorado, in the early 1890s. In yet another illustration from Harry Hill’s published in the Police Gazette, the world-title bare-knuckle boxing match between Hattie Stewart and Anne Lewis was displayed—though as the women were fully clothed in the tight-bodiced dresses of the day, it is fair to say that it was not a “literal” depiction of the event, which actually took place in Houston, Texas, as will be discussed.

  Victorian Woman of the Ring: Hattie Stewart

  Hattie Stewart likely came to New York in 1884 and began promoting herself as “The Female ‘John L. Sullivan’ and Champion Woman Heavyweight Boxer.” In a typewritten description of her exploits, neatly attached to an undated copy of a photograph of her from the early 1880s dated 1-5-1925, she is described as having “proved her right to the title . . . and on many occasions asserted her pugilistic superiority over some men opponents.”[23] An etched copy of the same photograph is displayed in the May 17, 1884, edition of the National Police Gazette:

  In this issue we publish a portrait of Hattie Stewart, the female champion boxer, who is eager to box any of the many female champions of America. . . . She has boxed at all the leading variety theatres, and she is ready to meet all challengers who will put up a deposit with the Police Gazette.[24]

  Speaking about her love of fighting to a reporter in Buffalo, New York, during a run of a boxing exhibition show in December 1887, she said:

  I love to fight. . . . As a girl at school in Philadelphia I was always fighting with boys. I was born [on October 27, 1858] and brought up in Philadelphia. I learned boxing and club-swinging in 1876 when I was 17 years old. For three years I taught boxing to ladies in the Norfolk, Va. Gymnasium. The southern women are pretty rough too. They can put on the gloves with any man. All they care for is horse racing and sport.[25]

  She also told the reporter she was “married to Richard Stewart at Norfolk,” where he “was master-of-the-sword at the gymnasium, where I taught boxing to women.”

  There is no mention of how she came to fight at Harry Hill’s in New York City, though it can be surmised that, since she had already been on the theater circuit as a female pugilist, she was either invited to participate in a match at Hill’s or made inquiries on her own. She was known to have boxed at Harry Hill’s in April of 1884, including a three-round bout with Miss Millie Aleta, about whom the New York Herald noted that she “show[ed] that she understood how to hit, stop and get away in good style.”[26]

  A later notice in the Police Gazette from January 1885 said that Stewart’s husband, Dick, was himself the “lightweight champion pugilist of East Virginia,” and added that he would be “boxing with his wife, Hattie Stewart, at Apollo Hall, Troy, N.Y.”[27] In fact, the Stewarts spent some time giving boxing exhibitions in and around Schenectady and Troy, New York, during the winter of 1885.

  Through the pages of the Police Gazette, a Miss A. [Anne] Lewis and Hattie Stewart challenged each other to a boxing match. The terms of the challenge were discussed in a letter from Anne Lewis to the sporting editor about boxing Hattie Stewart in the December 27, 1885, edition of the paper:

  In her challenge she offers to box me four, six or eight rounds for from $250 to $600 and the entire gate receipts, or the winner to take sixty-five per cent thereof. I wish to state through your paper that I will box Miss Stewart eight rounds for $500 and the entire gate receipts after all expenses are paid, or the winner to take seventy-five and the loser twenty-five percent.[28]

  Further arrangements were offered, including the place of the match, “New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago,” an agreement to use “Queensbury rules” and the further agreement to allow “Richard K. Fox to appoint the referee,” and signed, “Madame A. Lewis, Champion all-round female athlete of America.” The letter ended with the challenge to any and all women interested in a wrestling match.

  The Police Gazette published additional news stories about the fight as they became available. In the February 14, 1885, edition, the rules of agreement for the fight were published. The following week, the newsweekly published that the contest would be fought in New Orleans on “Sunday, February 22,” and that the bout had “created quite a breeze in sporting circles in that vicinity.” The fight itself would consist of “eight 3-minute rounds according to ‘Police Gazette’ Revised Queensberry rules.”[29]

  Speaking of her fight against Lewis in 1887, Stewart said:

  Here’s a picture of Anne Lewis. I licked her at Houston, Tex. on February 27, 1885. A match was made for us at New Orleans, for $200 a side, but the Sheriff intervened and we had to quit. She was the hardest woman I ever defeated, but I did it in less than two minutes. That’s the great trouble in my business—the Sheriff. Whenever I get a chance to fight, even if its advertised as ‘only a friendly set-to’ the authorities get onto it and stop the mill. All the ‘work’ I do now has to be private.[30]

  Whether the particulars of the fight were ever reported in the local press in Louisiana and Texas is unknown; however, the fight remained an important one for Stewart and Lewis.

  After defeating Lewis, Hattie toured on and off with her husband, Dick, winding up in Denver and other parts of Colorado giving boxing exhibitions in the autumn of 1885.

  By 1886 Stewart was appearing in variety shows in St. Paul, Minnesota, both with her husband and in a separate exhibition consisting of female athletes. The shows and the reportage about them provide a glimpse into the public perception of women’s boxing a mere ten years after the first fight at Harry Hill’s. They also give a hint of the progressive development of the sport as an entertainment from one venue in New York City to a variety of venues across the country, not to mention the interferences from local authorities from what Stewart called “the Sheriff.”

  Billed as part of “The Stewarts’ All Star Specialty company,” an item appeared in the October 3, 1886, edition of the St. Paul Daily Globe, noting that Hattie Stewart was “the champion female pugilist of America” and that she, along with her husband, Dick, were said to be “novelty sketch people.” Their show was put on at the Olympic Theater and included not only her pugilistic prowess but also song-and-dance men, clog dancing, flying trapeze artists, Minnie Lamont enacting seriocomic roles, and a pair of sketch artists.[31]

  A favorable notice was published about the night’s entertainment, judging them “a good company” that had “played to a more than average audience last night” with “several unusually clever members.”[32] One can presume that this included Hattie Stewart’s pugilism act, which was certainly a decided novelty. A week later the company was said to have given a “creditable variety performance,” so much so that they were booked at the Theater Comique in Minneapolis for a second week.[33]

  Hattie Stewart also performed in December of that year as part of Col. Joseph H. Wood’s female athletic exhibition. The production was originally booked for a one-week stand at the Exposition Rink in St. Paul, Minnesota. An article appearing in the paper, however, noted that the “chief of police was informed . . . by the mayor that the proposed ‘female athletic and gymnastic entertainment’ . . . would not be allowed.” The show was to feature “‘a female John L. Sullivan,’ . . . wrestling bouts by female athletes, and other athletic sports by a troupe of female gymnasts.”[34]

  The following day a note appeared providing tantalizing clues as to why the show had been stopped—particularly given that Hattie Stewart, the “female John L. Sullivan,” had successfully played in St. Paul to good notices two months prior to the December engagement. In the article, the journalist wrote “The edict . . . will have a demoralizing effect on this class of
sport in St. Paul in the future”; however, he further wrote that “While the suspicion is probably unjust, there is a rumor current that Ald. Pat Conley had something to do with the freezing out—solely in the interest of legitimate amusements.”[35] In other words the fix was in—perhaps because entertainments featuring female athletes were proving popular to the detriment of other more standard programs.

  Whatever the actual reason, Col. Wood was able to rebook the show at the Theater Comique in neighboring Minneapolis without incident for a one-week stand. Thus the show—featuring not only Hattie Stewart but also an assortment of wrestlers and boxers including Nellie Gorman, Belle Leslie, Laura Henderson, Agnes Fleming, and Ellen Marr—was able to go on.

  In the follow-up article that appeared in the press touting the show, it was noted, “that there is nothing in [Col. Wood’s] show which violates any law or ordinance. It being simply an exposition of the possibilities of the female sex in the development of physical strength.”[36]

  The show’s promoter, Col. Wood, was renowned as the P. T. Barnum of the Midwest. He was primarily known as a theatrical producer and showman who had built Wood’s Museum, first in Cleveland and later in Chicago. The Chicago venue proved to be a highly popular circus-like site for “curiosities” and other theatrical entertainments, and even housed Egyptian mummies, until it burned down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

  The show consisted of various athletic exhibitions including club swinging, a Greco-Roman wrestling match followed by a catch-as-catch-can wrestling match between two champions: Miss Laura Henderson (Greco-Roman) and Miss Agnes Fleming (catch-as-catch-can). Once those were completed, the main event of the evening was introduced, a four-round bout between Hattie Stewart (noted as the female John L. Sullivan) and Leslie Remington, a female middleweight champion. The author felt that Stewart “out-classed” her opponent in the “science” of boxing and that “she presented a strong guard and struck straight from the shoulder, man-like.” Remington’s blows by contrast were noted as “bias swipes, as she looked one way and struck another.”

  Given that Stewart outweighed her opponent by some thirty pounds and had far superior skills, the author ended his piece dolefully opining, “It is doubtful as to whether the deed of ‘noble women in a noble art’ were particularly edifying.”

  Other than the attention given to the appearance of the women and some blow-by-blow descriptions, the review did not at all discuss the right of women to perform athletic feats or to object to the show—except perhaps to complain at the relative quality of their efforts save for Stewart’s.

  As an interesting side note to the story, appearing not three months later, in March 1887, “A boxing match between female pugilists [was] arranged to take place at the Olympic Theater, St. Paul.” The two fighters were said to be Marcia Meade and Eugenia Meade who were to compete in a ten-round bout. The brief item closed with the sentiment “a novel and interesting match is looked for.”[37] No other articles related to the fight could be found.

  Hattie herself returned to St. Paul with her husband, Dick, to play at the Olympic Theater in February 1888, where they are said to have put on “one of the best boxing matches one would care to witness.” Coincidently, her old boxing teacher, Prof. Johnnie Clark, was in the audience, which only added to hilarity, when following the instructions in his note to her that read, “Please know the old man silly for me,” Hattie did just that, actually bringing out “the claret” with “a terrific right hander.”[38]

  Her career as a boxer continued, doing shows with her husband or taking on all comers when afforded the opportunity. Asked in 1887 if she ever fought men, she said, “Oh yes, many times. My husband don’t like to have me fight men, because it’s no credit to them if they knock me out, and if the men are defeated the crowed always says it was a ‘hippodrome.’”

  Her opinion of her female opponents was not all that great either. “Most of the women I meet in the ring are no good. They won’t stand up and give the people the worth of their money.”[39]

  Hattie did, however, continue to offer challenges for fights. One such challenge in 1890 was to Hattie Leslie (born Libbie Sporn), who had a controversial win over Alice Leary (born Barbara Dillon) for the title of female world champion in 1888, as shall be discussed. Stewart, then performing in Seattle, Washington, offered a fight for $500 a side. Leslie responded, noting “she would meet in a glove contest for $250 a side . . . [with] Police Gazette rules to govern with gloves weighing not over two ounces, bare hand preferred.” Leslie signed the challenge, “Hattie Leslie, Champion Female Pugilist Boxer of the World.”[40] The fight, however, was never held.

  At some point in the early 1890s, Hattie Stewart remarried, to a man named Thomas Gillen, a former lightweight pugilist and actor. It is unknown if she and Dick Stewart divorced or if he died. Hattie was still billed as the “Female John L. Sullivan” and she and her new husband continued to give boxing exhibition shows across the United States well into the turn of the century, eventually settling down to live in the Bronx, New York.

  The First Female World Boxing Championship

  In early July of 1888, “Two well dressed young women and several men met . . . at the restaurant Napoleon, on Main Street [in Buffalo, New York] to make arrangements for a prize fight.”

  The fighters were noted to be “Hattie Leslie, who is doing a club swinging act in a variety theater, and Alice Leary a serio comic.”

  Of the two women, Hattie Leslie was stated to be the more experienced. She was described as “twenty years old, 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 180 pounds and is muscular and well developed. She is a boxer of unusual ability and has knocked out pretty fair fighters in practicing with them.”

  Alice Leary by contrast was “six feet tall, twenty-four years old, weighs 180 pounds, and is also a brunette. She has not as much science as her opponent, but is more of a slugger.”

  Training was set to commence immediately for Alice, while Hattie’s would not as “her club swinging requires she keep in good physical condition.”

  Having agreed upon the rules, both fighters signed the articles of agreement, which read in part:

  We hereby agree to fight a fair stand up prize fight with skin tight gloves according to the new rule of the London prize fight to take place between August 23 and 27 place to be agreed on August 20, the fight to be for $500 a side and the championship of the world. The fight is to take place within one hundred miles of Buffalo.[41]

  One unusual aspect of the rules of engagement was the agreement to use skintight gloves rather than the six-ounce gloves typically used in prizefights at that time. Unfortunately, there is no understanding as to why the combatants did not insist upon padded gloves, which provided much more safety to the fighters. Another aspect of the promotion for the fight was the absence of the Police Gazette imprimatur, which may well have insisted upon the use of some padding even if it were only two ounces.

  The date of the fight was also delayed until September 16, 1888. The locale eventually chosen was Navy Island, Ontario, Canada—a tiny island originally colonized by the French on the Niagara River just south of Niagara Falls and the site of the small but popular Queens Hotel resort along with a few farmsteads. It was also the site of “three” of local pugilist “Billy Baker’s fights,” who was also acting as one of the promoters of the bout.[42]

  The fight group putting on the contest had been anticipating heavy betting on the outcome of the bout—and due to their publicity efforts, the press was to be well represented by reporters at the scene from some of the New York papers who would file their stories by telegraph after the contest.

  True to their word, the press was in attendance and reported that some fifty “toughs” or “sports” viewed the fight, depending upon which account of the fight was read. Others in attendance included the promoters, four well-known male pugilists who acted as seconds and referees, and Hattie’s pugilist husband, John Lewis, who allegedly taught her to box and worked alongside her in a variety
act that included sparring and club swinging. He also helped train her for the bout against Leary. One thing none of them had considered was that the day they’d chosen for the fight was a Sunday.

  In the predawn hours of the day of the match, in a heavy rain, the fighters and their entourage along with some fifty attendees and reporters boarded a “steamer towing a barge filled with liquids and solids”[43] for the three-hour trip up the Niagara River to Navy Island. Upon arrival, and with the rain coming down around them, it was evident that the ground they intended to use for the fight was too wet. The group scouted out an old empty farmhouse as an alternative, but it was found to be unsuitable and eventually they settled upon a barn.

  The barn itself was smaller than the usual square ring of twenty or twenty-four feet. Measuring only ten feet by twenty feet, there was no place for the usual ropes, and the people in attendance had to either stand flat against the hay and oat bales lining the walls of the barn or sit in the rafters above.

  Along with finding a locale for their set-to, the fighters switched from using the London prizefighting rules to the newer Queensbury rules—though no explanation was given for the change. Seconds were chosen as well. George “The Marine” LeBlanche, a well-known fighter from New York City, agreed to act as Hattie Leslie’s second, and the local fighter Billy Baker did the honors for Alice Leary. The referee chosen for the bout was “local sport” Jack Leonard, along with “Fistic” Carroll,[44] who was chosen as the timekeeper.

  Weighing in at 160 lbs., Leslie was the tauter of the two fighters and seemed in better condition. Leary, weighing in at 148 lbs., was in the opinion of the reporter from the Sun, “not trained down fine enough,”[45] even though she wore her weight on her six-foot frame. Both women readied for the fight out of sight of the barn, stripping down to their fighting costumes, which consisted of tights (black for Leslie, white for Leary), sleeveless wrappers (white for both), trunks (wine colored for Leslie, blue for Leary), and “regulation buff fighting shoes without spikes,”[46] with each woman covered by a white skirt and towels, to be removed at the time of the fight.