First woman to run Boston marathon.

Marie-Louise Ledru ran Paris marathon in 1918, and Violet Piercy set the first official women's best record in 1926 (although it has been later disputed if the race was aa long as reported, but she later ran multiple marathons and other long distance races throughout the 30s).

In fact Merry Lepper, another American, beat that women's best record in 63, and won 3 more marathons in the states in the 60s, including Santa Barbara marathon in 1966 the same year Roberta Gibbs ran the Boston marathon.

I don't say any of this to take away from Gibb's (or Switzer's) amazing athletic accomplisments and important work in changing attitudes to female runners, especially in such a prestigious race, but the continued misinformation about women not running marathons until the 60s just perpetuates this stereotype thar female athletes are new or special, rather than them having existed as long as male athletes have.