Origins.

One of the oldest and most prestigious prizes awarded in international yacht racing, the America's Cup was originally an 100-guinea silver trophy offered by the Royal Yacht Squadron to the winner of a race around the Isle of Wight on 22 August 1851. John Cox Stevens, a wealthy New Jersey real estate broker and founder of the New York Yacht Club, won the race by defeating seventeen British yachts. He named the cup after his yacht America and put the trophy on display at his Annandale, New Jersey, estate. After his death in 1857, the cup became the trust of the New York Yacht Club "as a permanent challenge cup, open to competition by any organized yacht club of any foreign country."

Social Atmosphere.

In the late nineteenth century yacht racing in the United States, as in England, was a pastime of the wealthy, and it...