Skip to content
Skip to main content

Exploring women’s Hawkeye Histories with the Iowa Women’s Archives

In curating Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories, Dr. Jennifer Sterling worked with the staff of the Iowa Women’s Archives (IWA) and the University Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries to select collection materials that bring Iowa’s athletic history to life. Many of those items help tell the story of Hawkeye women who broke barriers to make Iowa a leader on the national athletic stage.

Anna Holland, associate curator for the IWA, assisted with the exhibit by helping to find materials that tell the story of women in Hawkeye sports. Holland enjoys discovering what she describes as “eye-catching items that invite the viewer to imagine what it would be like to be there in that moment.” Below, she shares three objects on display in the exhibition that demonstrate women’s central role in Hawkeye Histories.

Table tents

One of Holland’s favorite items in the exhibit is a pair of table tents dating to the 1920s, used at a dinner to mark seats for Pauline Spencer and Julia Darrow, both accomplished student-athletes. The tents, which belong to the C. Pauline Spencer papers within IWA, are lettered and illustrated by hand. This sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm is one of the strongest throughlines connecting the IWA materials in the exhibition, according to Holland. “The time that must have been put into these custom drawings shows how much fun these athletes were having and how much they cared about their sport and each other,” she says. [IWA 0627]

Pins

This assortment of pins serves as a reminder of the many obstacles women athletes took on to combat gender inequality. Among Holland’s favorites are those that represent the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). “The AIAW was constantly battling for women’s equality in sport and for its own existence in an NCAA-dominated landscape,” says Holland. “I like to imagine women defiantly wearing these pins.” She also appreciates some of the declarative slogans—including “I’m a sportswoman and proud of it!”—that appear in the Holly Wilson Greene papers.

Dr. Christine Grant cut-out

Dr. Christine Grant was the University of Iowa’s first director of women’s intercollegiate athletics, beginning in 1973 after Title IX was signed into law. She continued in the role for 27 years, working tirelessly to lay the foundation for today’s record-breaking women’s teams. During the height of the pandemic, when stands were empty at sporting events, this cut-out of Grant was used to encourage athletes. When sporting events re-opened, the cut-out was donated to the IWA. When it’s not in Hawkeye Histories, it’s occupying a place of honor in the IWA reading room. “I love having Dr. Grant in the Archives ‘watching’ us all work,” says Holland. “I’m just really thrilled to be able to share her with others.”

Holland hopes that visitors to the exhibition will come away with a renewed interest in preserving pieces of their own history. “What we have in the Archives is thanks in great part to Iowans who kept their papers,” she says. “I’d like people today, particularly student-athletes, to think about what they are saving.”


There’s so much more where these materials came from. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of women’s athletics at Iowa, Holland recommends beginning with a visit to explore records and collections from the three leaders listed below.

Learn more

  • Christine Grant, the first and only head of women’s athletics at the University of Iowa
  • Lark Birdsong, the first head coach of Iowa’s women’s basketball program
  • Nadine Domond, a Hawkeye women’s basketball star who played under Coach C. Vivian Stringer and had a career in the WNBA

In the making: Soccer star Samantha Cary talks about her jersey’s inclusion in ‘Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories’

When Dr. Jennifer Sterling of the Department of American Studies and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication took on the role of curator for the Main Library Gallery’s fall 2024 exhibition, Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories, she knew she’d have over a century of material to sort through to tell the story of athletics at Iowa. She was also aware that some of the materials she sought—items with their histories still unfolding—would need to be borrowed from their owners.

One of these loaned items is a piece of recent sporting history: Samantha Cary’s soccer jersey. In January 2024, Cary became the first Hawkeye to be drafted to the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), joining Racing Louisville before moving to a top Swedish soccer club. While at Iowa, the all-time minutes leader was also awarded the honor of Scholar All-American for her academic performance.

Early in the curation process, Sterling knew she’d like to include the jersey, which she says provided an opportunity to expand on the stories of Iowa players recruited to professional leagues.

In the Q&A below, Cary discusses the transition from Iowa to life as a professional athlete and offers a glimpse of Hawkeye history from one of its recent stars.


What was the journey from Iowa to Kentucky to Sweden like?   

The past year has been an absolute whirlwind in the best possible way. After leaving Iowa and graduating I knew I always wanted to continue my career by playing pro. I entered my name in the NWSL draft and was fortunate enough to be the first Hawkeye drafted by Racing Louisville. I spent the next two months training and playing in Louisville in the NWSL, which was a dream come true. But then I was given the opportunity to sign a contract overseas in Sweden’s top division. This was a hard decision to make, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to travel the world and experience soccer overseas. So in March 2024 I moved to Sweden and have had a dream of a rookie year as a pro. 

What are a couple of your favorite stories about your time playing for Iowa?  

Playing at Iowa was one of the best experiences of my life. I have had so many highs, such as winning two Big Ten tournament titles and making it to three NCAA tournaments. But my favorite stories are the ones in the locker room and behind the scenes. I will always cherish the relationships I built with the staff in our weekly “Coffee with Cary” check-ins. I will never forget the 2021 season and working as a group to turn an 0-7-1 start into the first Big Ten Title. And I will never forget the laughs and dance parties in the locker room before games to get us excited and ready to go. 

How did your experience at Iowa prepare you for Louisville and Sweden?   

Playing at Iowa is the reason that I am a pro. It was the coaches and staff who were the first people to truly believe that being a pro was a possibility for me, and they pushed me every day to make it a reality. The team and the program knew my dream of being a pro and helped rally around it, not only challenging me to be a better player, but to help me grow my mind and my habits to lead me to a successful pro career.  

How do you feel about being Iowa’s first NWSL draftee? Why was this important for you, and for the Hawkeyes?

Being Iowa’s first draftee is something I am beyond proud of, but I know that it is due to the village that helped support me through my five-year Iowa career. Being challenged, pushed, and supported everyday by the Hawkeye community is the reason I was able to achieve this feat. This is extremely important to me, however, because of the recognition it allowed Iowa to have in the soccer community nationally. The Iowa program is often undeservedly an underdog in the soccer community, and being drafted was a way to shine a much-needed light on the Iowa program. 

What did you think when Sterling reached out about including your jersey in the exhibition? 

I was super thankful when [Sterling] reached out about my jersey being featured in this exhibition because the history of Iowa’s women’s sports is so special and rich, and the soccer program has earned a right to be a part of that history. By being included in this exhibit it will help cement the impact the Iowa soccer program has had on the university and highlight one small accomplishment out of so many. 


According to Sterling, these items form an integral part of Hawkeye Histories and remind visitors that current events will become histories too, gaining new resonance in the future. “It’s exceptionally important to continue to track recent histories and collect related materials for future research,” says Sterling.

To see Cary’s jersey and other Hawkeye Histories up close, visit the Main Library Gallery during the fall 2024 semester.

In the making: Hannah Sieperda is proud to see women’s wrestling headgear in ‘Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories’

When Dr. Jennifer Sterling of the Department of American Studies and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication took on the role of curator for the Main Library Gallery’s fall 2024 exhibition, Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories, she knew she’d have over a century of material to sort through to tell the story of athletics at Iowa. She was also aware that some of the materials she sought—items with their histories still unfolding—would need to be borrowed from their owners.

One of Sterling’s favorite loaned items in the exhibition is headgear worn during the women’s wrestling team’s record-breaking 2023–24 season. With its championship backstory, this Hawkeye women’s wrestling headgear occupies a place of honor in the exhibition.

According to Sterling, “The fight for girls’ and women’s inclusion in wrestling—and their success—is also part of a rich legacy of advocating for women’s equity in athletics at Iowa.”

In March 2024, the Hawkeye women’s wrestling team brought home the team title from the inaugural National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships (NCWWC), and six of its wrestlers became national champions. Hannah Sieperda, the program’s director of operations, was proud to join them for the journey.

Below, Sieperda shares her perspective on the exhibit and a landmark year for Hawkeye women’s wrestling.


What did you think when Sterling reached out about including some items from women’s wrestling in the exhibition?  

I was really excited when [Sterling] reached out about including items from the women’s wrestling program. It’s a great opportunity to highlight the contributions of what our women are doing in this sport and to showcase their impact on women’s wrestling in the state of Iowa. I also worked at the Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame and Museum during my undergraduate studies, so I was excited to be part of the curating process for an exhibit. 

What is important about the headgear and the proclamation on display in the exhibit? 

The headgear is a meaningful item that we provided to the women for their first postseason competitions. It’s important as a staff to ensure that every piece they received from the program features the Iowa Women’s Wrestling brand or the Tigerhawk logo above a designated line. This line, one of two you can see on the headgear, represents the standard of women’s collegiate wrestling, and that we aim to rise above it—not just as athletes, but as students, community leaders, and advocates for our sport. Each time our athletes wear it, they embody the pride and legacy of the University of Iowa and our women’s wrestling program. 

The proclamation serves as an official recognition of women’s wrestling in the state of Iowa. It not only highlights the dedication and hard work of the athletes but also celebrates the progress and achievements of the program we are building here at Iowa. 

What are a couple of favorite stories from your historic first season?  

One of my favorite stories from our historic season is the incredible resilience our team showed at the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) National Duals. In freestyle wrestling, which is different from the men’s folkstyle, even if you lose a match but score a point, you contribute to the team’s score. In a tough finals dual, we came from behind and secured a 21-20 win thanks to one of our athletes scoring a crucial point, despite losing her match. It was a powerful reminder that every point matters and showed the heart and determination that define our program. 

Another unforgettable moment was watching our young women win national titles at the NCWWC, competing against seasoned athletes. Their journeys, from day one to the championship, captured the spirit of perseverance and showcased the immense potential of our young program. These moments truly laid the foundation for our team’s future success.


According to Sterling, the work of curation is partially about preserving the present. “We should continue to adapt collection and curatorial practices for an increasingly digitized future,” she says, “So that we can continue to preserve, research, and share these important stories.”

To see the headgear that took Hawkeye women’s wrestling through a banner year and see other Hawkeye Histories up close, visit the Main Library Gallery during the fall 2024 semester.

Curation in real time: the scrapbooks that tell our ‘Hawkeye Histories’

When Dr. Jennifer Sterling set out to create the fall 2024 Main Library Gallery exhibit, Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories, she chose to include a handful of scrapbooks from the Iowa Women’s Archives and the University Archives at the University of Iowa Libraries. These items add a personal touch to the exhibition, showing how Hawkeye student-athletes perceived their own endeavors. Here, we break down what makes scrapbooks such lively additions to the archives.

What is an athletic scrapbook?

An athlete’s scrapbook may contain items like photographs, newspaper clippings, team rosters, and keepsakes like ribbons and miniature pennants. Handwritten notes, captions, and long-lost inside jokes can also be found among these pages.

Because they were so deliberately arranged by their creators, scrapbooks are almost exhibitions unto themselves. The way pages are arranged offers additional opportunities for athletes’ accomplishments to shine, showing which moments received top billing. Matrice Young, student life archivist, says that her favorite scrapbook in the exhibit belongs to Julius Hecker (BA ’12). “I like that most photographs get their own page, and as such, get their own wonder,” Young says.

Filling the margins

Scrapbooks offer unique insight into how their makers viewed the subject matter in real time. By arranging images, text, and other significant materials on the page, scrapbookers were engaging in a small-scale curation of their contemporary world. “[Scrapbooks] reflect what was important to their creators and what they thought was important to preserve,” says Sterling.

Sterling likes to draw visitors’ attention to the Archery Club scrapbook, which offers a rare look at a coeducational sport during the 1940s. In its pages, men and women compete against one another, practice together, and belong to the same team.

Long before Title IX began to address inequality in university athletics, members of women’s teams were already at work documenting their own stories. Women’s club sports like fencing had particularly comprehensive scrapbooks, which Sterling says has helped to keep their memories alive. “The histories we are able to tell about early women’s sports at Iowa are largely due to the detailed documentation the association and their clubs maintained, and the Iowa Women’s Archives’ (IWA) careful preservation of them.”

Taking a page out of their book

Anna Holland, associate curator for the IWA, hopes that today’s students will take inspiration from the scrapbooks of the past, even if their curation takes a different (likely digital) form. “I hope that current students will move with intention to save what matters to them so we will all have it to look back on in the future.”

A hawk’s-eye view of Iowa football history in ‘Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories’

Football is threaded into the University of Iowa’s DNA, and the importance of that connection is never clearer than during the height of football season. The sport also forms a crucial throughline in this semester’s Main Library Gallery exhibition, Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories, curated by Dr. Jennifer Sterling of the Department of American Studies and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“There are so many football histories to tell,” says Sterling. “It is Iowa’s oldest continuous sport, the first sport at Iowa to begin the process of African American desegregation, and it has been a fan favorite on campus since its late-1800s inception.”

Below, we offer a closer look at three of the football histories included in the exhibition.

Game-time decisions

The official history of Hawkeye football began in the 1880s. During those first few decades, the team played the majority of its games against other in-state institutions. But as football’s popularity spiked nationwide, so did the number of serious injuries endured by players. There was a clear need for regulation to mitigate the safety risks of the contact sport, and multiple Midwestern universities joined together in 1896 to form the organization that would become the Big Ten Conference. The University of Iowa signed on in 1899 and joined the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the process. By joining these regulatory bodies, Iowa became a leader in shaping the longevity of football as an intercollegiate sport.

In 1902, the university established its Board in Control of Athletics, a committee charged with ensuring that Iowa Athletics adhered to the standards set forth by the NCAA. Hawkeye Histories | Sporting Stories contains original copies of the handbooks used to regulate multiple sports, including football, at Iowa.

Putting football on the map

Data compiled from the Iowa Letterwinners Club and University of Iowa Athletics, first seasons through 2022–23. Research and data entry: Jennifer Sterling, Olivia Baier, Maria Copozzi, students from Spring 2024 SPST 1847 Hawkeye Nation class. Mapping and visualization: Digital Scholarship and Publishing Studio.

These two heat maps use aggregated data to tell a story about the reach of Iowa football’s reputation. The map on the left shows the hometowns of players from Iowa football’s beginnings in 1880 to the building momentum of the mid-20th century. The map on the right offers the same data for the years 1950–2022. By placing these two maps side by side, we can see the emergence of a trend: while the first Iowa football players were overwhelmingly from Iowa, today’s players are increasingly coming to us from locations across the country.

Beyond household names

Black and white portrait from the 1930 Hawkeye Yearbook of Mayes McLain. He looks straight ahead at the camera.
Hawkeye Yearbook, 1930. Yearbooks Collection [RG02.0010.001], University Archives.

While the exhibition features items and stories related to some of Iowa’s best-known players like Nile Kinnick and Duke Slater, it also devotes much-needed attention to athletes whose names are less familiar to today’s fans. Among them is Mayes McLain, a member of the Cherokee Nation who transferred from the Haskell Institute (now called Haskell Indian Nations University) in Kansas to play at Iowa during the 1928 season. He received an “I” letter, but his career at Iowa was cut short when the conference ruled that he had already met the three-year limit for players.

According to Sterling, “[McLain’s] history is also intertwined with the cusp of regulatory changes in intercollegiate athletics, which left him unfairly targeted and his playing days at Iowa shortened.”