Newport Sissies - 1906

This article is an interesting insight to the clash of cultures that had real ramifications for motorsport during its formative years of the 20th Century. This manifested itself in opposing views of which form of motorsport (oval vs. road racing) should be practiced. The Northeasterns supported road racing and most of the Middle West and further on utilized dirt horse tracks.
 
The opposing views were somewhat symptomatic of what we call today the polorization of "red" and "blue" states in our ongoing national political diaglogue. The attached article was originally published in the Sunday edition of the September 16, 1906 Indianapolis Star and zooms in on the views of one of the top female tennis players of the day, Elenora Sears.
 
She held the opinion  that the young men of her generation in Newport, Rhode Island were not battle-tested in that they carried little responsibility and enjoyed the fruits of their father's and grandfather's labors to build major corporations. At the time Sears was romantically linked to Harold S. Vanderbilt, the brother of William K. Vanderbilt Jr., the donor of the Vanderbilt Cup for America's first international auto race in 1904.
 
Newport was an exclusive area and a resort community for the extremely wealthy who many times built mansion-style "cottages," within the community such as Marble House that was constructed by Alva Vanderbilt, Willie K's mother, who later became - after divorce - Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont. The article is a little curious in that it is as much or more a lot of commentary on how the women of Newport spent their time. Also, Sears' were probably excessive as her advances skills and training on the court inevitably made it almost impossible for an amateur of either gender to get the best of her.