Sports & Leisure - Overview
The nation's passion for sports is obvious every day—at NASCAR races, kiddie soccer matches, and countless other contests. From a handball used by Abraham Lincoln to Chris Evert's tennis racket to a baseball signed by Jackie Robinson, the roughly 6.000 objects in the Museum's sports collections bear witness to the vital place of sports in the nation's history. Paper sports objects in the collections, such as souvenir programs and baseball cards, number in the hundreds of thousands.
Leisure collections encompass a different range of objects, including camping vehicles and gear, video games, playing cards, sportswear, exercise equipment, and Currier and Ives prints of fishing, hunting, and horseracing. Some 4,000 toys dating from the colonial period to the present are a special strength of the collections.
"Sports & Leisure - Overview" showing 1 items.
Tennis Racket
- Description
- This racquet was used by American tennis player Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) while winning the Wimbledon Men’s Singles championship in 1975. With the victory, Ashe became the first African-American to win the prestigious event, defeating fellow American Jimmy Connors three sets to one.
- Ashe, a native of Richmond, Virginia, was the also first African-American to be named to the U.S. Davis Cup Team (1963) and to win singles titles at the U.S. and Australian Opens (1968 and 1970.)
- Ashe was a vocal advocate for civil rights, both in the United States and abroad, and was involved in many humanitarian efforts, including the opening of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health. He has been recognized with honors such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and has had a statue erected on Richmond’s Monument Avenue.
- In 1997, the U.S. Tennis Association’s opened the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadow, New York. The court serves as the principal stadium for the U.S. Open.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1975
- associated dates
- 1991-04-09
- 1970-1980
- user
- Ashe, Arthur
- maker
- Head
- ID Number
- 1991.0178.01
- catalog number
- 1991.0178.01
- accession number
- 1991.0178
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center