Championnes ! The history of women’s sport in the interwar period is a collaboration of Roger-Viollet and L’Équipe.
The history of women’s sport between the wars reveals the evolution of the place of women in society.
Competitive sport had long been reserved for men. In the 1920s, practicing athletics or football for a woman was a real challenge. These new athletes caused a revolution in this exclusively male, conservative and often misogynistic world. These women understood the emancipatory nature of sporting practice. By encouraging it, by taking the lead in women’s societies and by creating international organisations in order to increase the number of competitions, they attracted the press to their new records and the public was there.
Each time, they tried to escape the male supervision that governs the sport. They fought the idea of the “weaker sex” and the medical arguments which forced them not to jump, run, throw… like men.
Pioneers of competitive sport, they have largely been forgotten, but their exploits and their determination paved the way for today’s sportswomen.
This exceptional exhibition will highlight more than 70 unpublished photographs from the archives of the newspaper Excelsior-Le Miroir des Sports (property of the Team) and the Roger-Viollet collections (kept by the Historical Library of the City of Paris).
Championnes !
From June 13 to September 14, 2024
Galerie Roger-Viollet
6 rue de Seine
75006 Paris
www.galerie-roger-viollet.fr
