In light of your article on Natalya Cafasso, I offer some facts about the early history of women’s fencing.

  • Women’s fencing has been an Olympic sport since 1924, when women’s foil was introduced. Women’s epee was added in 1996 and women’s saber in 2004.
  • The Olympics had its first woman competitor even earlier. Millicent Hall, the United Kingdom’s women’s fencing champion, competed in open foil competition at the 1908 games.
  • The first international women’s fencing competition was held in 1910 between England and Belgium.
  • In the early 1900s, there were fencing clubs in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and Wellesley had clubs. In 1901, Smith College and Mount Holyoke College each had fencing classes.
  • In Boston, Baroness Rose Posse, the widow of Baron Nils Posse (a major figure in the gymnastics education movement), taught women to fence at her gymnasium and school in the 1910s. Women’s fencing teams began to be formed in high schools.
  • In 1912, Arlene Dewar, a Philadelphia fencing champion, bested UK fencer Baroness Olga de Meyer at the Colony Club in New York City.
    • That same year, women’s clubs, including Wellesley’s “Mask and Foil,” were first admitted to the Amateur Fencing League of America (AFLA) (now the United States Fencing Association).
    • The first AFLA national women’s foil championship was held. Dr. Adelaide Baylis, a New York bacteriologist, became the first national champion.
  • The earliest record of women’s epee match is from Philadelphia in 1925.
  • In 1928, the National Intercollegiate Women’s Fencing Association (NIWFA) was founded. One sponsor was Isabella Mildred Stuyvesant Fish Jr., a New York aristocrat and avid fencer. The IWFA still awards a prize in her name.

Lisa Steele / Monroe Street, Shrewsbury

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