Tennis Giant: Molla Mallory by Rachel Barclay

Norwegian-American Molla Bjurstedt Mallory was a giant in early twentieth-century women’s tennis. Mallory was born Anna Margarethe Bjurstedt in Norway on March 6, 1884. Although she may have lived elsewhere in Norway as a child, she lived in Kristiana (Oslo) at the time she emigrated in 1914. As a tennis player in Norway, Molla earned a bronze medal in women’s singles tennis at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.

Despite her talent, this was to be her only Olympic medal. Although she petitioned the International Olympic Committee to allow her to compete as an American in the 1924 Games, the committee declared that she could not compete for the United States after having competed for Norway and could “lend to the American team only her sideline support.” Likewise, the Norwegian committee declared her ineligible to compete as a Norwegian, citing her marriage to Franklin I. Mallory—an American—as the reason. The 1924 Olympics were the first Games in which athletes from five continents were represented in the competition. Despite being barred from the Olympics, Mallory still became a dominant figure in women’s tennis on both the national and international stages.

Molla Mallory.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-115952].

After she arrived in the United States, Molla settled in New York City and wasted no time in establishing herself as an elite tennis player by winning her first United States National Outdoor Tennis Championship in 1915. She would go on to win that competition a total of eight times (1915-1918, 1920-1922, and 1926) in the next 11 years. Molla was a member of the elite Wightman Cup team in 1923, 1925, 1927, and 1928. The Wightman Cup was a tournament played between teams representing the United States and Great Britain. The tournament began in 1923 and took place in Great Britain on even-numbered years and the United States in odd-numbered years.

Shortly before her death in 1959, Molla Mallory was inducted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. As a player, she is remembered as the “Norse Girl,” or “the girl from Norway,” who utilized her powerful forehand swing against many opponents. After she won the world championship in 1921, the Evening Public Ledger out of Philadelphia noted that “the champion deserves every bit of praise handed her and more. Never has a playing-through champion met and defeated such a field, and never has any girl more clearly demonstrated her prowess and the right to be called a champion.” Molla Mallory was part of what Billie Jean King has called the “lncomparable years” of women’s tennis.

Vesterheim’s collection contains objects that help to illustrate Mallory’s notable tennis career, as well as objects that help to shed light on the life she created in New York City after leaving Oslo. Pertaining to her tennis achievements, Vesterheim holds a few of the prizes she was awarded for her various tennis victories. These objects are very different from the grandiose trophies given for sports victories today, but their meaning was the same. The trophies Mallory received for her tennis victories are much more akin to common objects. For example, she was awarded a clock which is now in Vesterheim’s collection.

One of Molla Mallory’s tennis awards. Her awards were often engraved objects rather than traditional trophies. Clock with enameled decoration. Height, 3 inches.

Molla Mallory. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-USZ62-115952].

Aside from her tennis career, Molla Mallory apparently was an art aficionado as well. Her personal belongings contained a large number of engravings by Norwegian artist Fritz Thaulow. Vesterheim holds 13 of these engravings. Mallory had originally given them to a New York aquaintance by the name of Olea Aanrud. Aanrud gifted the engravings to Harry and Josefa Anderson of Chicago, who later donated the engravings to Vesterheim. Molla Mallory was one of the first Norwegian Americans to compete fully as an American on the national and international level, and she considered herself an American by the time of her death in 1959.