In 2020, I completed my master’s thesis in the Department of Kinesiology at Penn State University. Over several years, I researched the history of lawn tennis and argued my thesis on the basis of that research.
Racquet Trilogy: Lawn Tennis, the World’s Fair, and the Early Modern Olympic Games explores the fascinating relationship between these three institutions at the turn of the twentieth century. My research argues that lawn tennis was an ideal fit for the Olympic movement because of its strong social connections with the upper classes of Europe and North America. The first three Olympic tennis tournaments remain underrepresented in historical scholarship, but demonstrate that the sport was a source of stability and consistency during the developing years of the modern Olympic movement.
Racquet Trilogy is freely available through Penn State University’s thesis database. You can read it in its entirety here.