Gertrude Ederle: Ruling The Waves

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The 18th of August, 1925, late afternoon.

Six miles off Dover, a 19-year-old American woman was in the sea.

Her eyes stung from the salt water that seeped in behind her goggles.

It's the tides, it's the waves.

It's also a commercial thoroughfare, so you have these gigantic boats coming through, creating even more waves.

There's all kinds of floating wood that's debris that can knock into you.

She'd been treading water for hours.

She was disorientated and off balance.

The debris from shipping wasn't the only threat.

She knew that there were sharks around.

She knew there were jellyfish.

They would sting you and of course your body would swell up and there were lots of them.

Gertrude Ederley tried to stay calm as she attempted a huge feat of endurance and mental fortitude, swimming at least 21 miles across the English Channel.

And you know, you could ask any one of those swimmers who had tried it before.

They would make it six hours, they'd make it eight hours, but to go the full length of it is an enormous challenge.

Enormous.

You're swimming in the complete dark.

Maybe the first eight hours is in, or ten hours is in daylight, but half of that night you're swimming in, you don't know where you're going.

Wearing just a scratchy one-piece swimsuit, Edelie had already swum 23 miles from her starting point in Cape Grinèse, France.

It was very chafing on her skin, and then the part on the bottom was creating a rash and redness.

And she did not like the lanolin and the Vaseline and the other fats and oils they put on her because it made her feel so sticky.

And now she felt woozy.

A huge wave swept over her.

Salt water filled her mouth and she began to cough violently.

She felt a man's arm around hers, and then the real stinging pain hit her.

For BBC Radio 4, this is history's heroes: people with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone.

I'm Alex von Tunselmann.

I'm a historian, and today I want to tell you about Gertrude Ederle.

She was a woman of incredible focus and drive, who took up a challenge that only a handful of men had ever successfully completed.

Earlier that morning, Gertrude Ederle stood on the shore of Cape Grines, northern France, the closest point to Great Britain.

Everyone had told her it was easier to swim the English Channel northwards, starting from the French coast.

As she looked out across the broad stretch of water, though, she was struck by the monumental task ahead.

Only five people were ever recorded as successfully completing the channel swim, and they were all men.

Most of the men went in their birthday suits, so they had nothing on except the grease.

But she was modest enough, and of course that would have created created such a scandal if she had chosen not to wear anything.

She decided to wear a pink bathing cap and she had a one-piece suit.

She found that to be very limiting, the heaviness of it.

You could wear a wool suit or a silk suit.

Brenda Green is the co-author of America's Girl, the incredible story of how swimmer Gertrude Ederle changed the nation.

She was very determined to be the first woman to swim across.

After the First World War, American women claimed more freedom.

Fashions and norms changed fast.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women the right to vote.

Yet many in American society still believed women were the weaker sex.

Women like Gertrude Ederle were determined to prove they were just as capable as men.

It was an eye-catching ambition to swim across the English Channel, demanding levels of athleticism that some still believed women could never reach.

And, you know, fortunately, she grew up in a time where women were saying, hey, wait a minute, that is not the case.

We can be free, we can be independent, we can create a life of our own that we are designing, and we don't need your approval.

Edelie traveled to the south coast of England for her main sea training.

She was the daughter of German immigrants to the United States, Henry and Gertrude Ederley.

In 1904, the year before she was born, their community was devastated by a maritime disaster.

A passenger steamboat, the General Slocum, was ferrying members of a church to a picnic across the East River of New York when it caught fire and sank.

Most of the people on board, more than 1,000 of them, mostly women and children, were killed.

Few had ever learned to swim, and the heavy woolen clothes they wore dragged them down beneath the waves.

The next year, when the Ederleys had their daughter Gertrude, they were determined she would learn to swim.

When she was aged five though, Gertrude contracted measles.

She survived, but the disease permanently damaged her hearing.

It definitely affected her, and it was progressive.

So as a result of that, I think she did retreat when she could.

She was a big fan of mystery books.

She played on ukulele and they loved to sing and she would be part of that whole crew.

But after a while, it would be too demanding on her.

Doctors advised against her spending long periods in water.

When other children swam, Gertrude felt left out.

Her father couldn't bear seeing her so deflated.

On a family holiday to the Jersey Shore, he let her try the water.

He put her on the end of a line, clothesline, tied it around her waist, and sort of said, go in there and figure it out.

Gertrude was hooked.

As a young teenager, she joined the Women's Swimming Association of New York, one of several groups that had been set up to help women learn to swim.

Women in Sport was new, the Women's Swimming Association.

That's where she found her tribe.

So part of it was wanting to be part of, and part of it was this sense of, I can prove myself, and don't assume just because I can't hear or just because I'm a girl that I

am any less than anyone else.

Most long-distance swimmers at the time swam breaststroke, but it wasn't fast enough for Gertrude Ederley, who enjoyed the much faster American crawl, known elsewhere as front crawl.

As a teenager, she became so good that she represented her country.

She had done the Paris Olympics.

She was very excited about going there.

Judy really felt very committed to representing the United States as a German immigrant daughter, and she wanted to do well.

Once she was in Paris, though, Ederie was given accommodation a long way from the pool, riding on the rickety bus back and forth, her legs seized up.

She said her legs were bothering her, so she only came home with one gold medal.

A gold as part of the 400-meter freestyle, and bronze in the 100 and 400-meter individual freestyle events.

And she was disappointed in her performance.

Everybody else was too.

They just figured that she was going to just, you know, sweep the medals, the gold medals, because she had been doing so well up there.

When Ederle returned to the United States, the Women's Swimming Association chose another woman as their candidate for the unassisted marathon swim across the English Channel.

She was heartbroken.

And so there was a sense, which is very typical of Judy, of wanting to redeem herself.

Ederle had something that mattered a lot at a time when newspapers and magazines were using more pictures than ever.

She was marketable.

Newspapers were looking for a heroine, right?

They were looking for someone to put on their front pages because of that sense of, hey, times are changing.

Women are coming into their own.

And she fit the bill because she was very American.

She was shy and she wasn't a flapper and who was smoking cigarettes and, you know, hanging out at the speakeasies.

Edelie's broad-shouldered athletic build didn't make her an object of desire for a male audience but her healthy figure appealed to other women inspiring them to look after their bodies and enjoy sport.

And the newspapers also liked seeing women in swimsuits.

I mean that was great copy for them, great photos for them.

She wasn't a tall woman, but she was very, very strong and she didn't mind going around showing her muscles like this.

She enjoyed boxers and she would flex her muscles.

Then an opportunity presented itself.

The Women's Swimming Association's candidate sustained an injury and had to withdraw from the English Channel swim.

So the head of the association decided to give Ederley a chance.

They hired her a coach.

His name was Wolf, Jabiz Wolf, and he had already attempted to swim the channel.

He never made it across, but he was considered an expert.

Jacob Jabez Wolf was a Scottish long-distance swimmer.

He'd attempted the channel swim himself more than 20 times.

He'd never made it all the way.

He didn't always see eye to eye with Edelie.

He thought she was unfocused.

and that she wouldn't listen to him.

He wanted to make sure that she had daily massages and she wasn't comfortable with that by him.

He just was that kind of negative personality and Trudy wasn't used to that and she didn't appreciate it.

He wanted her to slow down.

He was determined she would not swim her favorite American crawl, believing she would become tired too quickly.

He was continually saying, I'm the expert.

You don't know what you're doing.

And she was bucking him all along.

She was saying she couldn't be stubborn that way.

She felt that she knew what was better for her.

You don't tell me what to do, and him saying, I'm in charge here.

Despite their tempestuous relationship, Ederle made it to the big day with Wolf by her side.

Then, in the cold waters of the English Channel, she started her race.

Up until then, they they were all doing the breaststroke, going at a very slow pace across the channel, and she had no intention of doing that.

She maintained her focus and swam as she had wanted.

So when you told Trudy no, that just got up her sense of determination and grit, and she said, no, I'm going to make that decision, not you.

Edelie had been in the cold, salty water of the channel for hours.

Lips swollen, head aching, body covered in jellyfish stings.

Her confidence was faltering.

As she plowed through the water, she was followed by support swimmers and by a crew on a tugboat.

They were there to help her navigate the changeable currents and to keep her fed.

They might even help keep her spirits up.

There were tons and tons of journalists on it.

There was even a four-piece band and she could hear them playing the music.

The sounds of the trombone, cornet, clarinet, and concertina kept Edelie going, and the crew regularly lowered a feeding bottle to give her beef broth, but with great care, because if she were touched by the crew or the boat, that meant instant disqualification.

As she worked through the waves, though, she began to feel increasingly queasy.

Her mind couldn't help but think of the beef broth Wolf had given her.

She was sure it tasted strange.

That there was something

some alcohol, maybe a brandy or something in there.

And, you know, in defense of Wolf, many of the prior swimmers had nourished themselves with a shot of brandy to keep them warm.

You know, that was not unusual for them to have a little nip as they were crossing the channel, but you know, she's a young woman, 19 years old, and she was very appalled that she had been trying to do that.

The sea became rough.

Eight hours and 43 minutes in, the tug lurched, and with it all the journalists and musicians on board.

Seasickness hit some of them instantly.

Ederley took in a huge gulp of water.

Wolf feared she was drowning.

He demanded one of her supports, the Egyptian swimmer Ishak Helmi, grab her and pull her to safety.

And that was against the rules.

You were not allowed to touch the swimmer at all during the swim.

That was the moment Edelie's dream was over.

When he pulled her into the boat, Helmy believed her to be unconscious.

And that disqualified her from finishing the race.

And she was very, very disappointed.

The support crew covered a disorientated Edelie with blankets.

You know, getting a little water in the mouth and coughing was not grounds for Wolf to tell the Egyptian swimmer to take her out of the water.

She's huddled over in and trying to get warm,

and she's totally disappointed in what has just transpired, and that she just basically collapsed in the little tunnel that she was in and retreated from the whole scene.

She was overwhelmed.

She didn't want to go home a failure, but she needed to regroup and think through what had happened in the water.

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Live in the Bay Area long enough, and you know that this region is made up of many communities, each with its own people, stories, and local realities.

I'm Erica Cruz-Guevara, host of KQED's podcast, The Bay.

I sit down with reporters and the people who know this place best to connect the dots on why these stories matter to all of us.

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Her chaperone was there and witnessed this whole event, and

she was not sure that Wolf had the best intentions.

That perhaps he was a little

upset that this woman might actually complete the swim.

And he had tried 22 times and hadn't.

So she was wondering if there was this sense of, you know, he was willing to train her, but was he willing to stand by her and see her become victorious?

At that, I think the rumours started like he didn't want to see her succeed.

Ederle came to the conclusion that Wolfe had deliberately sabotaged her attempt.

She believed he'd spiked her beef broth and had her pulled from the water when it was not necessary.

Her chaperone agreed.

The Women's Swimming Association backed Ederley, though the claim that Wolfe had spiked her broth remained unproven.

Whatever the truth, though, Edelie's trust in him was irrevocably broken.

But she would not be held back, especially not by an unsupportive man.

She was,

again,

of the same belief that he did not really want her to succeed, and that he had been spiking her beef broth, that he had tried to bully her into slowing down when she, that was not her natural style, and that he was constantly

putting negative thoughts into her mind.

Edelie wanted to try to swim the channel again.

Before she did, though, she had to make some big changes.

The first thing she did was ask her father to make her a promise.

She had said to Pa,

When I do this second swim, no matter what,

you are not to pull me from the water.

I don't want the trainer pulling me from the water.

I don't want any swimmer touching me.

I am going to do this.

Do not touch me.

Let me abide by the regulations and make it across the channel.

Her training needed to change too.

Wolf was obviously out of the picture, so she hired a new coach, Bill Burgess.

Burgess had been the second man to swim the channel successfully back in 1911.

He worked exclusively with her, and they trained in New York.

This time, she decided she wouldn't rely on the Women's Swimming Association for funding, but would raise the money herself.

She took a position at a hotel in Miami, Florida, working as a swimming instructor and performer.

She also cut various press deals covering her expenses in exchange for access to her and her story.

At the start of August 1926, Edelie was ready for her second channel swim attempt.

Could she make it through the currents and the cold and reach England?

Now aged 20, she made some final changes to her swimming costume.

She enlisted the help of her sister, Margaret.

Sometimes water would get in the goggles and it was like, what are we going to do?

How can we prevent this?

So they were sitting at a table and there was a candle on the table and Margaret said, Trudy, what about if we melt it and put the wax on the goggles and kind of seal it, you know, so the water can't get in?

So they did that and they put, she put the goggles, I think, up on a mantle, like to dry that night.

And then the next day she went for her practice swim and they didn't leak.

Mary Ederley Ward is Gertrude Ederley's niece.

She remembers being told how they fixed Ederley's swimsuit for the big day.

She and Morg were like, Well, what should we do?

And then Morg was like, Why don't we make a two-piece Trudy?

You know, which on then it was unheard of for a woman to wear a two-piece.

The silk costume was light with an elasticated waistband on the shorts.

Now her midriff was bare.

So it was like a sports bra and gyps bathing suit, and that actually helped propel her through the water faster.

Shortly after seven o'clock in the morning, on the 6th of August, 1926, Edelie strolled out to the shoreline.

She was wearing her new two-piece costume and was smeared all over with sheep grease.

As she waded into the channel, she said a prayer, asking God to help her.

The sea was so turbulent that ferry crossings had been cancelled.

Undaunted, she began to swim.

Everyone on the tugboat, including her coach, Burgess, and her sister, Margaret, was worried for her safety.

And Mr.

Burgess wanted to take her out.

And my grandfather went to the other side of the boat and started crying because he was watching Trudy struggle, you know, through the waves.

And he goes, but I can't take her out, Mr.

Burgess.

I promised unless she wants to out.

Despite the difficult conditions, Edelie showed no sign of fear.

It took her way off course.

As she swam through the challenging tides, she seemed joyful.

She even burst into song.

She kind of liked the waves, like she liked going up and down in them.

So Mr.

Burgess must yell, Trudy, you should come out.

You know, the waves are too big.

You should come out.

She goes, what for?

Her father wanted to give her a red roadster if she completed the swim, and the Daily News jumped on the idea as a publicity stunt.

While Ederie braved the waves, the support crew held up signs, shouting the names of parts of a car, letting her know she'd just won a wheel or a bonnet.

She kept going until at last she could see the English shoreline.

Mary Ederley Ward's aunt told her about the event when she was a child.

And Aunt Margaret said, Mary, it was the most beautiful sight in the world because she had energy and her kick, she was known for her kick, and the white foam coming up from her kick and the spotlight on her, the big light from the tugboat was shining on Aunt Trudy.

And Burgess must have said, Trudy, like take off your goggles, like throw them away, you know, so you could see.

And she's like, oh, I'm not throwing the goggles away.

Like, it took us forever to like develop these.

So she hands them to Burgess or margaret whoever took them and then she backs off towards the shore 14 hours and 31 minutes after she started edeley reached kingsdown on the english coast had she been able to swim in a straight line it would have been 21 miles between france and england but the sea was so rough she probably swam more like 35 miles

and i remember she said she kept kept saying, Dad, get back, get back, don't touch me till my feet clear the water.

You know, so like she could have been disqualified if he touched her too soon.

Finally, Gertrude Ederley was the first woman to swim the channel.

What's more, her time set a new world record.

She beat the record set by men by two hours.

He kept going, my kid, my kid, you know, and he was hugging her on the beach.

And the other good part of it was the next day she goes, I was the first one up in the morning, like I wasn't even tired.

I was awake like really early in the morning before anybody else.

Ederle was honored with a ticker tape parade in New York, a visit to the White House, and a spate of marriage proposals.

Edeley's channel swim helped demonstrate that women could be great athletes, not just as good as men, but better.

During the 1920s, she helped inspire more than 60,000 women throughout the United States to earn Red Cross swimming certificates.

She was willing always to serve others and help them because she had been helped so much by others.

You know, she didn't come out of nowhere.

There was the WSA, there were great coaches, there were great trainers, there was that family support.

She knew that more than others and she wanted to make sure that legacy continued for others and that, you know, she was there to help, she was there to teach, she was there to help move us all forward.

Despite all this success, Edelie was shy and her hearing problems were getting worse.

Then, in 1933, she slipped on broken tiles in the stairwell of an apartment building and fell, twisting her spine.

This confined confined her to bed and she was told she might have to stay there for the rest of her life.

Yet Edelie would not be beaten.

Now in her 30s, she learned again how to walk.

She lived her own life according to her set of what felt right for her and she didn't allow other people to determine what her life was going to be like.

Edelie never married and lived quietly for many years in Queens, New York, with two female companions.

Her family say she answered all her fan mail.

When she would sign an autograph, she would say, Keep faith in all you do.

Keep faith in God and keep faith in that you think you can do it.

Oh, I want to be a nurse, I want to be a teacher, I want to be this or that.

Keep faith in that.

And she remained devoted to her family.

She showed us all, my whole family,

how to follow your dreams,

how not to give up,

how to accept disappointment and failure, but then get up and do it again and try

and succeed.

She was a very loving aunt who

taught me so much.

If you enjoyed this story, next time in a bonus episode of History's Heroes, I'll be talking to the swimmer Jenny Landruff.

How did Gertrude Ederley's achievements change swimming for women?

I'm David Dimbleby and from the History Podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is Invisible Hands, the story of the free market revolution.

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