Gisela Gresser

Gisela Gresser was the first lady of the Hall of Fame. She won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship nine times from 1944 to 1969, and represented the U.S. in Women's World Championship qualifying events on several occasions. She was one of the first two women in the U.S. to achieve a master's rating, and played on three women's Olympiad teams.

Ms. Gresser was an important pioneer in women's chess because she showed that women could become strong players in formal, high-level competition. Before her time, some women gained brief flashes of fame in U.S. chess, but always in an unofficial sort of way. Ladies were prominent in chess only as sometime solvers and composers of problems. Many felt that women could not stand the rigors of a serious event, even when they were highly skilled in friendly games.

Things began to change in 1938 when Caroline Marshall, wife of long-time U.S. champion Frank Marshall, organized a U.S. Women's Championship at the Rockefeller Center in New York. One of the spectators was Ms. Gresser who had recently become serious about chess. Ms. Gresser played in the 1940 championship, and her first title came in 1944, the same year as fellow inductee Denker. Her repeated successes in a variety of national and international events did much to establish the respectability and viability of organized chess for women players. She took her promotional responsibilities quite seriously, publishing a number of articles, including one which she is particularly proud of-- an account of a Russian tournament in the Ladies' Home Journal.