Tennis racket:Geneva

A. G. Spalding & Bros. patented this tennis racket in 1905, at a time when the sport was gradually shaking its image as a pastime for upper-class women. Although versions of tennis had existed for centuries, it first gained broad popularity when British sportsman Walter Clopton Wingfield invented lawn tennis in the early 1870s for upper-class athletes in search of a more vigorous alternative to croquet. Wingfield patented his game in 1874 and sold kits with all the necessary equipment. When he failed to renew his patent a few years later, the market opened up for other manufacturers to produce their own equipment. By the 1880s, fashionable summer resorts had begun catering to the lawn-tennis rage. Wealthy Americans embraced the sport because it provided them with physical exercise at a time when many began to fear that freedom from manual labor led to physical, moral, and social decline. Toward the end of the century, noting that major players typically blamed poor equipment for poor performance, sports equipment manufacturer A. G. Spalding & Bros. sought to create a tennis racket that could provide greater power. That power eventually helped the sport interest a wider popular audience, leading to the first major public tournaments, held in the 1920s.