It’s not uncommon nowadays to find a woman in a book or on the movie screen trained in martial arts. With a few high-flying kicks and a karate chop or two, she stands triumphant over the bodies of the bad guys. You might think women’s interest in martial arts is something fairly recent.
Well, you’d be wrong.
In the later part of the nineteenth century, the streets were dangerous, far more than today. Freedom to walk in public alone was considered the sole right of men. Middle- and upper-class women had limited ability and severely restricted movement. Using an escort meant ceding privacy and even more control over their lives. But by the end of the 1800s, industrialization and urbanization created new opportunities. Women moved into education, work areas, and leisure pursuits, and although respectable women began to ride street cars and walk city streets alone, their actions were not without consequences. The term ‘mashers’ was coined, a slang term for men who harassed or made unwanted sexual advances. Women discovered police were not always willing or able to protect them.
As the right to vote movement spread, so did the idea of woman standing up to physical attacks. Reformers and suffragists were largely responsible for encouraging women to learn self-defense tactics. Many suffragists already used their bodies to resist oppression by picketing and forcing their way into public buildings. What was wrong with a little more shoving and a poke in the eye to make a point?
Needless to say, it wasn’t met with universal approval. Many men denounced women aggressively fending off attackers as indecent and unnatural, a horrified male minister accused them of “breaking down barriers of distinction between the sexes.”
Despite criticism, in the early 1900s, courses sprung up in self-defense. American women in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era turned to boxing and wrestling as an expression of empowerment through physical training. The “manly art” of boxing was touted as a way to develop character and physical strength in men, but rapidly became a popular fad among progressive-thinking women and college girls. Many in the public feared boxing would masculinize women while others emphasized boxing’s ability to enhance feminine beauty. One newspaper editorial praised boxing’s ability to “cure bad temper, feminine hysterics, or a catty disposition.” While female boxers were seen as oddities, exhibitions weren’t uncommon. In 1900, a circus strong woman from England, named Polly Burns, was named the Women’s World Boxing Champion.
Think kung fu is a new thing? Think again. Asian martial arts courses in the early 1900s were popular. Harrie Irving Hancock, taught classes in jiu-jitsu for women and children. In his manual, Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods (1905) he wrote that the phrase “weaker sex” needed to be “stricken from the language.”
Women using self-defense tactics often made headlines. In 1909, twenty-year-old nursing student Wilma Berger defended herself against an attacker and became a local sensation in Chicago. She had studied under Tomita Tsunejiro, who helped introduce judo to the United States. Under the disbelieving eyes of the local police, she demonstrated her technique on an officer, by tossing him like a sack of laundry.
Interestingly enough, many self-defense courses were taught via pamphlet. Few middle and lower-class women had access to actual classes, so free pamphlets and illustrated articles in newspapers presented the techniques. The Yabe School of Jiu-Jitsu in Rochester, New York, offered free lessons through the mail. Lest you scoff at them, in 1906 Mary Steckler pinned down a would-be mugger until police arrived. She learned her smooth moves from a pamphlet.
One of the interesting parts of early self-defense classes was the “use what you have.” Today, a woman might have pepper spray. In 1900, a woman’s chief weapon was the hat pin. A well-dressed woman always had her hair up in public and she used to secure the hat pin to secure the hat to her hairdo. The pins were long, up to 6 inches, and sturdy. They were also an important piece of jewelry as no well-dressed woman would be seen in public without a hat. A woman might have more than one needle-sharp hatpin on her outfit, a handy, unexpected weapon. In 1912, Elizabeth Foley, an 18-year-old bank employee, was walking home with a male colleague who carried the entire payroll for the bank staff. They were attacked by a robber who knocked the male colleague down. But Elizabeth, undaunted, reached for her hatpin and jabbed the robber’s face. The attacker ran away without the money. No rescue need.
Take that, Wonder Woman. Who needs a magic lasso when a hatpin is at hand?
