Athletics competitor
Robert S. Garrett
(May 24, 1875
[1]
– April 25, 1961) was an American
athlete
, as well as investment banker and philanthropist in
Baltimore, Maryland
and financier of several important archeological excavations. Garrett was the first modern
Olympic
champion in
discus throw
as well as
shot put
.
[2]
Early and family life
[
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]
Robert S. Garrett was born in then rural/suburban
Baltimore County
,
Maryland
(which surrounds the City of
Baltimore
) into one of
Maryland's
most prominent and wealthy families. For four generations, the Garretts ran Robert Garrett and Sons, a shipping and financing, investment banking firm founded by his
Irish
immigrant great-grandfather, also named Robert Garrett, in 1819. His grandfather
John Work Garrett
(1820?1884) had led the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
(the first passenger railroad line established in America, 1827?1828), for nearly three decades (1858?1884), including supporting the
Union
during the
American Civil War
(1861?1865), making it by the middle of the 19th century as one of the most important lines in the nation, and also became an important philanthropist in Baltimore. His father was Thomas Harrison Garrett (1849?1888), and his mother the former Alice Dickerson Whitridge; his elder brother
John Work Garrett
(1872?1942) became a distinguished American diplomat for the
United States Department of State
.
Like his elder brother, Robert S. Garrett studied at
Princeton University
, in
Princeton, New Jersey
, where he excelled in track and field athletics as an undergraduate, and captained Princeton's track team in both his junior and senior years. Garrett married Katharine Barker Johnson (1885?1961), who survived him by less than a year. They had two sons and three daughters by 1920.
[3]
Although their first daughter and son both died as infants, and their youngest son, a
United States Army Air Corps
pilot Lt. John Work Garrett (1924?1944) died during
World War II
(1939/1941?1945), and sons Harrison Garrett (1911?1994) and Johnson Garrett (1912?1979) survived their parents, as did daughters Katharine Garrett Bainbridge (1914?1999) and Ella Brock Johnson Garrett Brigham (1917?2006).
Athletic career
[
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]
As an undergraduate, Garrett was primarily a shot-putter, though he also competed in the
jumping events
. When he decided to compete in the famous
first modern Olympic games
(First Olympiad) being revived and held in
Athens
,
Greece
, in 1896, Professor
William Milligan Sloane
suggested that Garrett also try the discus. They consulted classical authorities to develop a drawing and Garrett hired a blacksmith to make a discus. It weighed nearly 30 pounds (14 kg) and was impossible to throw any distance, so he gave up on the idea. Garrett paid for his own and three classmates' travel to
Athens
to compete in the games.
Francis Lane
would finish third in
100 m
,
Herbert Jamison
finished second in
400 m
, and
Albert Tyler
placed second in
pole vault
. When Garrett discovered that a real discus weighed less than five pounds (2.3 kg), he decided to enter the event for fun.
1896 First Olympics
[
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]
The three Greek discus throwers among the eleven men entered in the event were true stylists. Each throw, as they spun and rose from a classical
Discobolus
stance, was intended to be beautiful.
[
attribution needed
]
Garrett threw the discus with tremendous force using a style more similar to the
hammer throw
, after seizing the discus in his right hand and swinging himself around and around. Garrett's first two throws were clumsy. Instead of sailing parallel to the ground, the discus turned over and over and narrowly missed hitting audience members. Both foreigners and Americans laughed at his efforts, and Garrett joined in the general merriment. His final throw, however, punctuated with a loud grunt, sent the discus sailing 19 centimetres (7.5 in) beyond the second-place throw (by
Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos
) mark at 29.15 metres (95 ft 8 in).
American spectator Burton Holmes wrote: "All were stupefied. The Greeks had been defeated at their own classic exercise. They were overwhelmed by the superior skill and daring of the Americans, to whom they ascribed a supernatural invincibility enabling them to dispense with training and to win at games which they had never before seen."
[
citation needed
]
According to
James Connolly
, the winning Americans in five of the track and field events had not had a single day of outdoor practice since the previous fall.
Garrett also won the shot put with a distance of 11.22 metres (36 ft 10 in) and finished second in the high jump (tied equally with
James Connolly
at 1.65 metres (5 ft 5 in)) and second in the long jump (with a jump of 6.00 metres (19 ft 8 in)).
1900 Second Olympics
[
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]
In the subsequent
1900 Olympics
four years later, Garrett competed again and placed third in the shot put and the standing triple jump. His bronze medal in the shot put was unusual, as he refused to compete in the final because it was on a Sunday, his religious day of rest. However, his qualifying mark was good enough to place Garrett in third place. He also competed in the discus throw again, but due to a poorly planned course was unable to set a legal mark as all of his discus throws hit trees.
Garrett was also a member of the
Tug-of-War
team at the 1900 Olympics that was forced to withdraw because three of the six members were engaged in the hammer throw final.
Baltimore banker and civic leader
[
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]
Share of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-Road Company, issued October 14, 1879
1879 B&O Railroad stock certificate (back) signed by Robert Garrett
Garrett later became a banker and financier at his grandfather's historic mercantile firm, Robert Garrett and Sons, at their landmark office building on the southwest corner of South and Water Streets in
downtown Baltimore
. He was an investor in the
B&O Railroad
.
Archeology and manuscripts
[
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]
Garrett had an early intensive interest in science, especially in
history
and
archeology
, and became an early collector and important donor. He helped to organize and finance an archaeological expedition to
Syria
, led by Dr.
John M. T. Finney
. From 1932 to 1939, he was involved with the Committee for the Excavation of
Antioch
and Its Vicinity both helping to fund the excavations and working on them. Garrett's hobby was collecting medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts
. Garrett amassed a collection of historical volumes of Western and non-Western manuscripts, fragments, and scrolls, originating from Europe, the Near East, Africa, Asia and Mesoamerica, ca. 1340 B.C. ? A.D. 1900s. He inherited his collecting interest from his father, Thomas Harrison Garrett. After his father's sudden death in 1888, Robert spent the following two and a half years traveling extensively with his mother and two brothers, Horatio and John, in Europe and the Near East. During his travels Garrett developed a particular interest in manuscripts and began collecting. He used the text Universal Paleography: or, Facsimiles of Writing of All Nations and Periods by J. B. Silvester (by Sir Frederic Madden, London, 1949?50) as his guide for collecting primary examples of every known type of script.
Garrett was for many years an enthusiastic alumnus and served as trustee of Princeton University and also on the governing board of the
Baltimore Museum of Art
, founded in 1914 by his aunt
Mary Elizabeth Garrett, (1857-1915)
, and working in the relocation and construction project of their new museum building designed by famous American architect
John Russell Pope
(1874-1937), on Art Museum Drive, off of
North Charles Street
, and adjacent to the also newly located
Homewood Campus
of
The Johns Hopkins University
. In 1942, Garrett donated his collection of more than 11,000 manuscripts to
Princeton University
, including the "Aksum Scrolls" and sixteen
Byzantine
Greek manuscripts, containing rare examples of illuminated
Byzantine art
.
Baltimore activist
[
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]
Through a mayoral appointment, Garrett served as the chairman of the city's Public Improvement Commission. He was also largely responsible for bringing the new
Boy Scouts of America
youth organization to Baltimore in 1910, shortly after its national establishment and imported from
Great Britain
with founder.
[4]
He managed the BSA in Baltimore until his retirement in 1934. In 1919, Garrett gave to the City of Baltimore a tract of land of a city block along East Patapsco Avenue, between Second and Third Streets in its recently annexed
Brooklyn
neighborhood in South Baltimore to be used as a public park, which was named in his honor.
Garrett helped develop Baltimore's public recreational facilities, many of which were privately funded by himself, colleagues and friends. Garrett organized the Public Athletic League which later merged with a similar earlier Children's Playground Association. He was the first chairman of Baltimore City's Bureau of Recreation, and the first chairman of the city's Board of Park Commissioners for the combined Department of Recreation and Parks. Garrett was through much of his life an active member of the National Recreation Association, and was elected its chairman in 1941.
In the Baltimore mayoral campaign of 1947, both the Republican and Democratic nominees promised that, if elected, they would name Garrett as chairman of the city's Department of Recreation and Parks. A devout Presbyterian throughout his life, he was a member of their national convention - the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States
, and was recognized in 1948 as the year's outstanding layperson in the field of religious education by the
International Council of Religious Education
.
In the realm of civil rights for African-Americans, Garrett was a staunch conservative and opposed any
racial integration
of the city's public facilities in its parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts and recreation centers. Controversies increased as the national
civil rights movement
expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s. Garrett was later asked to resign from the Board of Park Commissioners when a positive vote for integration was taken.
[
citation needed
]
Death and legacy
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]
Garrett died on April 25, 1961, in Baltimore, Maryland
[5]
and was buried with other family members at Baltimore's historic
Green Mount Cemetery
, where his widow would also be buried by year's end. As noted above, the Garrett Park recreation area in Baltimore City's Brooklyn neighborhood, on East Patapsco Avenue, between Second and Third Streets, was donated and named for him.
[6]
He donated his papers to Princeton University; the
Library of Congress
also has family papers
In the 1984
NBC
television two-part
miniseries
,
The First Olympics: Athens 1896
, Garrett was portrayed by actor
Hunt Block
. In the second episode, Garrett was incorrectly portrayed as being a participant in the first Olympic
Marathon
.
[
citation needed
]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
- ^
"Robert Garrett Papers (C0627) -- Robert Garrett Papers"
.
findingaids.princeton.edu
. Retrieved
February 13,
2017
.
- ^
"Robert Garrett"
.
Olympedia
. Retrieved
December 20,
2020
.
- ^
1920 U.S. Federal Census for district 454, Baltimore City Ward 27, family 125.
- ^
Wendell, Bryan (August 9, 2016).
"Robert Garrett, 1896 Olympic champ, brought BSA to Baltimore"
.
Scouting
. Retrieved
November 6,
2018
.
- ^
The New York Times, Obituaries, April 26, 1961; The Baltimore Sun, Obituaries, April 26, 1961.
- ^
"Garrett Park - Brooklyn - 2 tips from 17 visitors"
. Foursquare.com. July 20, 2016
. Retrieved
November 6,
2018
.
- De Wael, Herman.
Herman's Full Olympians
: "Athletics 1900".
Accessed March 18, 2006.
- Mallon, Bill (1998).
The 1900 Olympic Games, Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary
. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
ISBN
0-7864-0378-0
.
- Robert Garrett Papers
, 1903-1949 (bulk 1920?1945), Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division.
External links
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