Margaret Abbott

Margaret Ives Abbott (June 15, 1878 – June 10, 1955) was the first American woman to win an Olympic event. She won the women's golf tournament, consisting of nine holes, with a score of 47, at the 1900 Paris Games. Abbott won a porcelain bowl for first place in golf. (The 1900 Games were the only Olympics at which winners received valuable artifacts instead of medals.)

The 1900 Games, the first in which women were allowed to compete, included 11 female athletes competing in the "ladylike" sports of golf, tennis and yachting. However, these games were so poorly organized and publicized that many competitors, including Abbott, did not realize that the events they entered were part of the Olympics. Historical research did not establish that the game was on the Olympic program until after Abbott's death, so she herself never knew it.

Abbott, who was born in Calcutta in 1878, was living in Chicago at the time, but had traveled to Paris to study art under Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin. Her mother, Mary Abbott, a novelist and book reviewer for the Chicago Tribune, also competed in the event, finishing tied for seventh place, making it the only Olympic event in which a mother and daughter competed at the same time.

Abbott married the writer Finley Peter Dunne in 1902.