A President, A Starlet and One Stubborn Man: How the 1932 Winter Games in Lake Placid Put Winter Sports and Team USA on the Map
Located roughly three-hundred miles northwest of New York City, between the state’s capital of Albany and the Canadian capital city of Ottawa; nestled among picturesque pine trees in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains, the tiny village of Lake Placid was an unlikely place to host the 1932 Winter Olympics. Taking place during the darkest days of the Great Depression in the early 1930’s, in an era before television, the III Olympic Winter Games (as they were officially called) were unlikely to popularize winter sports in particular, and the Olympic Games in general in the United States at a time when most Americans were struggling day to day simply to feed themselves and their families. But thanks to the tireless efforts, and stubbornness, of one man; to the intervention of a future American President, unique and modern innovations with regards to the Olympic Games themselves (many which have stayed with us to this day) and to a group of talented, courageous and unique American