1932 Winter Olympics
3rd Winter Olympics, in Lake Placid, New York, United States
The 1932 Winter Olympics, officially known as the III Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Lake Placid 1932, were a winter multi-sport event in the United States, held in Lake Placid, New York, United States. The games opened on February 4 and closed on February 13. It was the first time the Winter Games were held outside of Europe and the first of four Winter Olympics held in the United States; Lake Placid hosted again in 1980.
The games were awarded to Lake Placid in part by the efforts of Godfrey Dewey, head of the Lake Placid Club and son of Melvil Dewey, inventor of the Dewey Decimal System. California also had a bid for the 1932 Winter Games. William May Garland, president of the California X Olympiad Association, wanted the games to take place in Wrightwood and Big Pines, California. The world's largest ski jump at the time was constructed in Big Pines for the event, but the games were ultimately awarded to Lake Placid.
The practice of awarding Olympic medals at podium ceremonies was established at the 1932 Winter Olympics, based on pedestals used at the 1930 British Empire Games, as proposed by Melville Marks Robinson.
Highlights
American company Coca-Cola became the official provider of that games' soft drinks and would remain so for all subsequent winter Olympics (as of 2024).
The Games were opened by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Governor of New York.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1932 Winter Olympics” is 3rd Winter Olympics, in Lake Placid, New York, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Winter, Olympics and Lake, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “3rd Winter Olympics, in Lake Placid, New York, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9596. VIAF identifies the subject as 136542094. The Library of Congress control number is n99016950. Authority coordinates are 44.283, -73.984. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1980, 1930 and 2024.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1932 Winter Olympics”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1932 Winter Olympics primary sources, 1932 Winter Olympics archive and Winter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “1932 Winter Olympics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.