Mildred Burke held a version of the women's world championship for roughly two decades, from the late 1930s into the 1950s, and defended it across the United States, Canada, Mexico and Japan. She was, by the standards of any era, a star. She was also a woman running a business in a sport that had decided, for most of the twentieth century, that women were a novelty attraction and not a division.
Mildred Burke in a promotional still. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
She learned the trade from Billy Wolfe, a promoter who handled a stable of women wrestlers and who, at various points, controlled her bookings, her marriage and her money. Burke eventually broke with him and promoted herself, which in that era meant building a company from the ground up rather than asking for a spot on someone else's card.
Burke with the heavyweight boxer Max Baer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Her matches were shoot-style in presentation and worked in practice, and contemporary press coverage treated her as a legitimate athlete, which is precisely what she was. She trained other women, kept working into the 1950s, and lived long enough to see the business she had helped build mostly forget her. The photographs here come from her own promotional materials and from newspaper archives.
The belt was the argument. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The championship belt in these pictures is the argument. She was not a sideshow booked between the men. She was the world champion, and she drew.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel Joffe edits the Monday Night Wrestling history series. More of the archive is at israeljoffe.com.
More from the series: the 1908 match that made professional wrestling · Gorgeous George and the night television learned to boo · Ed Lewis held the title for twenty years · Jim Londos filled buildings in the worst years