Helen Stephens set a world record when she won the gold medal for 100 meter sprint at the 1936 Berlin Olympics set in Nazi Germany. The Great Depression and World War II prevented her from returning to the Olympics. However, Stephens enjoyed an incredible athletic career which spanned into her golden years. Among other things, she was the first woman to manage a professional basketball team. She championed women in the pursuit of gaining equal athletic opportunities. Her biography is fascinating because it captures the drama of Stephen’s own personal journey beginning in rural Fulton, MO, alongside the development of the modern Olympics, implementation of Title IX, and evolution of US gender perceptions. After her Olympic win, Stephens was accused of being a man – prompting random gender testing for athletes. She was later frequently consulted on this topic.
Helen Stephens held a 3o year career as a librarian at the Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center in St. Louis – a fact that I, as a librarian myself, very much appreciate. Pam Miner, a professional archivist at the Missouri State Archives assisted in compiling Stephen’s enormous collection of correspondence, newspaper articles, and ephemera which were accessed in researching this biography. Many of these materials are now part of the University of Missouri’s Historic Manuscripts collection. Sharon Kinney Hanson portrays Stephens as warm, witty, dependable, and as an international diplomat for women in sports. Helen Stephens passed away in 1994 having led an fantastically full life.
262 pages
