Duluth Library Wildcats, 1929
Okay, so they’re not criminals, but they were treated like they’d done something wrong.
I found this photo, from 1929, on a wonderful site called Perfect Duluth Day while researching my work-in-progress, a novel set in Prohibition-era Duluth. These women—who all worked at the Public library—formed a team that played in competition for just one day. At the time, there wasn’t any chance for women to play league hockey. So they played for an event called the “City Frolic” and then disbanded.
I love the photo, because the women look like they’re having a great time together. And they seem so modern in their plaid shirts and leather jackets, their hats pulled over their short bobs. It makes me sad to think that—because of discrimination against women in sports—they couldn’t keep having such a fabulous time, along with the teams they played against. I haven’t been able to find anything about the other teams, yet, but there were clearly other women ready to play.
In 1996, Dick Bartholdi, the son of one of the Library Wildcats, decided to coach a girls’ hockey team in Cloquet, Minnesota. His mom was Mildred McKibbon (later Bartholdi). In the photo, she’s standing on the far left, in that adorable hat.
When Dick’s daughter, Brigitte, (Mildred’s ten-year-old granddaughter) decided she wanted to learn how to play hockey, Mildred’s son got to work. Yet, seventy years after Mildred and her buds played together in Duluth, it was still hard to get people to take girls’ hockey seriously. People actually said that the girls were “taking away ice time” from the boys. In an article on the Minnesota Public Radio site from 2001, Mildred’s son defended the idea of girls playing hockey:
My mother played hockey for the Duluth Library Wildcats in 1929, and I have the picture to prove it. And so there were women who wanted to play in the '20s, but they weren't allowed to. . . . They've always wanted to play.
In fact, in 2003, Mildred’s granddaughter, Brigitte, some of her hockey leaguemates and their parents sued under Title IX to get the girls’ state championship held at the Xcel Center—home of the Minnesota Wild—just like the boys’ championship. Their lawsuit failed, but kept the issue alive.
The Girls State Hockey Championship has been held at the Xcel Center in Saint Paul since 2006. You’ve got to think that Mildred and her friends would be pleased.
For my novel, I’ve invented an opposing team called The Beauty School Tigers. They’re going to help my main character—a 21-year-old bootlegger—out of trouble.
So thanks to all of the Duluth Library Wildcats, including Mildred.
And thank you, Paul Lundgren of Perfect Duluth Day. And to Gina Temple-Rhodes, of the Duluth Public Library, who found this photo in the library archives.