She was the First Woman to Swim Across the English Channel

Gertrude Ederle (1905-2003), at age 15, became the first woman to swim the length of New York Bay and, in 1924, won three medals at the Paris Olympics. The German American athlete rocketed to international stardom in 1926, at age 20, as the first woman to swim across the English Channel, a feat only five men had completed, then considered one of the toughest endurance tests in the world. Wearing a revolutionary two-piece bathing suit and goggles she designed herself, for 14½ hours, Ederle battled 21 miles of frigid water and treacherous tides, beating the fastest man’s existing record by nearly two hours — the first time in sporting history that a woman had completed an event in a faster time than a man. Dubbed “Queen of the Waves” and “America’s Best Girl,” her accomplishment helped to demonstrate that women could be great athletes and challenged conventional wisdom about women as “the weaker sex.” Ederle’s hearing, which had already been damaged by a childhood case of measles, severely worsened after swimming the English Channel and left her “stone deaf,” in her words. Unable to compete in swim meets, Ederle briefly toured the U.S. on the vaudeville circuit. Later in life, she taught swimming to deaf children in New York City.

Interviewees: historian Linda J. Borish, Associate Professor of History, Western Michigan University and Co-Author of Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization; two-time Olympic medalist Lia Neal, the first African American woman to swim in an Olympic final for the United States.