As the popularity of women's basketball peaks with the success of Caitlyn Clark and the WNBA, interest in the history of the sport continues to grow. Presented here is the earliest women's basketball scorecard we have ever seen, and surely one of the earliest in existence - for an 1896 game at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, just a half hour down the New York Thruway from Love of the Game's offices.

Vassar College was established in 1861, just the second degree-granting institution for women in the United States. It remained exclusively a women's institution until 1969. Women's basketball was introduced in 1892, just four years before this game was played, and the first rule book for women's basketball was not published until 1895. The game featured in this scorecard pitted the class of 1896 against the class of 1899 and appeared to be a 2-1 victory for the elder team. 

A quick glance at Vassar yearbooks will verify that the names in the scorecard were mostly active in Vassar athletics throughout the 1890s, many listed as basketball players. Vassar encouraged sports, building a new gymnasium in 1889 and establishing an Athletic Association in 1894. Basketball became one of the most popular sports at the school, as clearly evidenced by those yearbooks. This scorecard, folded to 3 7/8" x 5 5/8", has been carefully scored in ink (to the degree that a 2-1 basketball game can be scored, all points coming in the second half). In VG/EX condition, the scorecard displays a few modest stains and surface abrasions, as well as some overall waviness, likely from once being mounted and then removed from a scrapbook. An outstanding piece, one of the earliest documents of women's sports of any kind that we have handled.