Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World

by Glenn Stout

  There, in a few brief paragraphs, was the future of an entire sport. And there it sat, in one of Catlin's notebooks, for much of the next decade, unread and unstudied, as countless men and women "in the polished world" drowned, just as Julius Catlin had. But if anyone had looked closely at the painting Catlin made the following winter entitled Hidatsa Village, Earth Covered Lodges, on the Knife River, they would have seen how profoundly the scene affected the painter. From the perspective of the opposite shore the scene shows more than a dozen mud dwellings atop a bluff above the river. In the foreground of the far shore, where the river runs beneath the village, four natives lay horizontal in the water, each with an arm stretched out or overhead, apparently swimming easily.

  Yet on the near shore, almost unnoticed, in the lower right corner of the painting is an indistinct lone figure not identifiable as a native. This figure, half immersed in water, arms thrust overhead, appears to be drowning. A canoe is rushing toward the figure, water churning as it speeds to help, and several natives can be seen running toward the riverbank, preparing to dive into the water.

  The contrast in the scene is unmistakable. The natives can swim. The drowning figure cannot.

  Over the next few years Catlin made several more journeys, eventually making contact with nearly fifty tribes, turning his sketches into paintings, opening a modest gallery to display his work, and giving lectures with little success. In the meantime the Mandan and Hidatsa were both afflicted with smallpox. The disease raced through the tribes, and only five years after Catlin's first contact barely one hundred Mandan remained alive, while nearly half the Hidatsa succumbed.

  Distraught, depressed, and on his way toward bankruptcy, in 1840 Catlin gathered his paintings and other artifacts and abandoned America for England, hoping for a better reception, and self-published a two-volume collection of his writings and prints entitled Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, a book that included Catlin's description of the swimming natives. For a time his gallery was quite successful, but after a few years interest began to wane. Catlin, scrambling for financial survival, then created an English version of the "Wild West" show, using family members and actors to portray Native Americans.

  Then he encountered a retired member of the Canadian military, Colonel Arthur Rankin, who had befriended the Ojibwa tribe and had traveled to England with nearly a dozen members of the tribe. The Ojibwa caused a sensation in London, and Rankin and Catlin became partners as the Ojibwa become a living display in Catlin's gallery, performing actual native dances and songs.

  A short time later at the invitation of a member of the British Swimming Society, who had apparently read Catlin's book, the Ojibwa were invited to make an appearance at the swimming baths at High Holborn. The society wished to see a demonstration of native swimming. Two Ojibwa, Wenishkaweabee (the Flying Gull) and Sahma (Tobacco), were invited to compete for a silver medal to be presented by the society.

  As London's Times reported, "At a signal the Indians jumped into the bath, and, on a pistol being discharged, they struck out and swam to the other end, a distance of 130 feet, in less than half a minute. The Flying Gull was the victor by seven feet ... The style of swimming is totally 'un-European.' They thrash the water violently with their arms, like sails of a windmill, and beat downward with their feet, blowing with force and grotesque antics ... They dived from one end of the bath to the other with the rapidity of an arrow, and almost as straight as the tension of limb." Although no one in attendance realized it, they had just witnessed the first formal demonstration of a stroke that would one day be refined into the "crawl," better known today as the "freestyle." It left enough of an impression that for some decades afterward the stroke was known in England as simply "the Indian."

  After a second race, again won by the Flying Gull, the two natives were challenged to swim once more by Harold Kenworthy, a member of the society and widely acknowledged as one of the best swimmers in England. For the third time in less than ten minutes, the two Ojibwa dove into the water, this time joined by Kenworthy. Kenworthy, utilizing the backstroke, won easily as the Flying Gull and Tobacco, by this time exhausted, barely managed to finish. The victory satisfied the Englishman's sense of superiority, for the English would be slow to adopt "the Indian" stroke, but the days of the breaststroke as the preeminent style of swimming were numbered. All it would take was someone to recognize it.

  Perhaps the first swimmer to recognize and take advantage of the style of swimming that so captivated George Catlin was John Arthur Trudgen, who, quite apart from Catlin, made his own discovery. The son of an English engineer employed in Brazil, as a boy Trudgen was taught how to swim by native Brazilians, learning a stroke that was essentially identical to that displayed by the two Ojibwa. When he returned to England he began to use the stroke, which he refined somewhat from the original, using the same double overarm stroke displayed by the Mandan and the two Ojibwa. But instead of beating "downward with their feet," as the Ojibwa had, Trudgen utilized the "frog kick" used by proponents of the breaststroke, kicking simultaneous with the downward stroke of his right arm. He then glided forward, legs together, as he stroked with his left arm. Although the result was rather jerky, as the swimmer constantly sped forward then slowed down, this slight change made the stroke palatable to the English sensibility, which was at least as concerned with grace as it was with raw speed, and Trudgen's kick resulted in less splashing than the swimming style demonstrated by the Ojibwa.

  In early August 1875, representing the Alliance Swimming Club of London at Edgbaston Reservoir, in a race in which every other swimmer used the breaststroke, Trudgen captured the English 100-yard championship, traveling the distance in one minute and sixteen seconds—roughly the same pace as the Flying Gull in his first exhibition some thirty years earlier. Recalling the two Ojibwa, as a writer in the British publication the Swimming Record sniffed a few days later, Trudgen's "action reminds an observer of a style peculiar to the Indians."

  5. The Women's Swimming Association

  ONCE TRUDY LEARNED to swim, there was no keeping her out of the water. Although her parents insisted that she spend a few more sessions attached to the rope, Trudy soon learned not only the dog paddle but, with the help of Helen and Meg, the breaststroke as well. Every day of every summer the family spent in the Highlands, Trudy spent at least a few minutes in the ocean, either watching over her younger siblings or racing though the surf with Meg.

  She and Meg were both intrigued by the men and boys they saw swimming farther offshore—and not just because they were men. These swimmers used a stroke the girls had heard of—the crawl—but neither girl had any idea of how, precisely, it was done, and both were too shy to ask. They tried to learn by watching, but whenever they tried the stroke themselves, churning each arm like a pinwheel, they were far more successful at splashing each other than at swimming, able to propel themselves forward only a few yards before becoming exhausted and collapsing in laughter.

  Ever since the Ederles had spent their first summer in the Highlands it had become not just a second home, but something of a sanctuary, for as World War I unfolded and it became ever more likely that the United States would enter the conflict, anti-German sentiment, which in some parts of the country had even led to lynchings, began to foment and spread. Despite the long-established role German immigrants played in American culture, ex-president Theodore Roosevelt had summed up the growing climate of intolerance by referring to German immigrants that tried to retain their German heritage disparagingly, calling them "hyphenated Americans ... not Americans at all, but traitors to America and tools and servants of Germany against America."

  The challenge for a successful, high-profile German family like the Ederles was to emphasize the American portion of their ancestry, for New York, despite its vibrant German community, was particularly reactionary—even long-established German-American families in New York were not immune to the reach of anti-German sentiment. The New
York press, particularly the New York World, encouraged anti-German attitudes, and they were on display throughout the city in any number of ways: City College of New York cut the number of credits it awarded for the study of German language and history, city schools dropped German from the curriculum, and the Metropolitan Opera banned works by German composers. Germanic street signs were changed and foods such as sauerkraut temporarily became known as "liberty cabbage," German measles was referred to as "liberty measles," and even the most ubiquitous of American foods with a German heritage—the hamburger—temporarily became known as the "liberty sandwich." Although nearly three-quarters of a million New Yorkers were of German extraction, during the war fewer than half would publicly acknowledge their German roots. German cultural and social societies either disbanded or virtually went underground. In some parts of the city, most notably Brooklyn, anti-German sentiments ran so high that entire neighborhoods fled in fear, dispersing to elsewhere in the city. Plenty of Schmidts and Brauns suddenly became Smiths and Browns.

  Henry Ederle did not hide his German heritage but neither did he flaunt it, and as the war continued, the Ederles found ways to emphasize the American portion of their German-American background. Henry Ederle had been a citizen since 1906 and openly and enthusiastically embraced his status as an American. In 1917, as required by law, he registered for the draft, willing, if called, to do battle against his former countrymen. He made a point to buy Liberty bonds and made sure the American flag and patriotic bunting were prominently displayed in the front window at Ederle Brothers Meats. And even though the social life of many German-American families centered around various German groups like the Turner societies that promoted German culture and German-only athletic competitions, wise Germans like Henry Ederle either cut their ties to such groups or kept them hidden. The Ederles did not raise their children as German-Americans, but as Americans. The Ederle girls were typical American girls to the core, thoroughly modern. To the occasional consternation of their parents, they embraced every fad and fashion. They liked listening to popular music on the gramophone, taught one another how to dance, went to the movies, and, in the winter, ice-skated in Central Park.

  While the Ederles had to exercise some caution over their heritage in Manhattan, the xenophobia so common in New York was far less pronounced in the Highlands. There the Ederles didn't have to worry who they were perceived to be—they could be themselves, something that was increasingly important to Trudy.

  It was hard to tell which parent she favored, for apart from a slight cleft in her chin she shared the same close-set eyes and strong chin of both parents. She was neither tall nor short for her age, and although, compared to her older sisters, she was rather large-boned, she was not overweight. Her hair was auburn and she wore it long, down to her shoulders, although in the summer the power of the sun gave her temporary blond highlights and a smattering of freckles spread across her cheeks.

  In the summer of 1918, as World War I inched toward its conclusion, the war dominated newspaper headlines and dinner conversation. But Trudy was almost oblivious. Every day she spent in the Highlands revolved around the water, and all she thought of was swimming. As she became more accomplished as a swimmer, she was allowed in the water by herself, and long after Meg or Helen had left for home Trudy could be found in the water. She liked to test herself, swimming from one pier to another, or seeing just how long she could stay afloat without touching bottom. At times she seemed not to notice how much time was passing and sometimes stayed in for hours. She would even tell people, "To me, the sea is like a person—like a child that I've known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I'm out there." For the rest of her life, like the tide itself, she would return to her conversation, again and again and again, with the sea.

  One reason Trudy found the sea to be such a steady companion was that as she grew older her hearing problem grew more pronounced. It didn't happen all at once, but over time Trudy slowly began to withdraw. At home, with her family, young Trudy was a typical, bubbly, feisty young girl who doted on her young siblings, George and Emma, and continued to follow her older sisters around like a puppy, but in school and away from the family she was a bit withdrawn, as if not always certain what was being said or taking place around her.

  It wasn't obvious to everyone, but away from home she spoke just a little bit louder and a little less often than other girls her age, and gravitated to activities she could do by herself, like swimming, that didn't require a great deal of interaction with others. She was a good student but around strangers remained a little shy. More so than her sisters, she became a voracious reader, curling up in a chair every evening after finishing her schoolwork, devouring popular dime novels full of romance, daring, and adventure. While her doctors were alarmed by the amount of time she was spending in the water, fearing the possibility of further infections and additional damage, now that she could swim, keeping Trudy out of the water was impossible. As Trudy admitted later, "The doctors told me my hearing would get worse, but I loved the water so much I couldn't stop." Whatever damage exposure to the water might have caused to her hearing, it was more than offset by the joy she experienced in the water.

  Her parents seem to have come to the same conclusion—nothing was going to keep Trudy out of the water. So when her mother saw a notice for a swimming and diving exhibition in the Highlands sponsored by something called the Women's Swimming Association (WSA), she was intrigued. But she was drawn to the group by more than the simple fact that it was about swimming. Unlike the Turner societies or other German social groups, the WSA had no ethnic identity—it was an American organization, albeit all-white, without other restrictions on membership. Perhaps, thought Gertrud Ederle, this was the kind of group Trudy might want to belong to, a place where she could meet other young women of various backgrounds just as excited about swimming as she was, and an organization that could simultaneously draw her out of her shell and help her pursue her favorite pastime.

  Although the WSA was less than a year old, the organization was already revolutionary, changing the way women looked at themselves, and thereby changing the way men viewed women. It was made for the Ederle girls, who loved the water and loved all things new and American.

  The roots of the organization had been born on the day of the Slocum tragedy. In the wake of so many deaths, all so pointless and all so avoidable, the issue of women and the morality of swimming had been thrust into the spotlight. Only a few weeks after the tragedy a letter to the editor in the New York Times began, '"Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' but to teach its people the 'art of self-preservation' should be the first law of a nation and would tend to lessen the repetition of Slocum tragedies." Captain Tom Riley, Coney Island's best-known lifeguard and swimming instructor, told a reporter, "The burning of the General Slocum has aroused thousands of people of the necessity of learning how to swim." Riley addressed the question of women swimmers directly, telling the newspaper bluntly, "The average girl has just as much nerve as the boy in the water and will become as good a swimmer if taught properly," but he offered that "the trouble with grown up women is that sometime in their lives they have been dunked by a would-be funny idiot until they have come to regard the water with terror."

  Those who were fighting for women's suffrage and women's rights viewed the tragedy as a call to arms. Suffragists and women's rights advocates immediately began to campaign for changes in women's swimming attire and recommended swimming lessons for women, but at first the movement had little traction.

  The major problem was, in a sense, semantic. Over much of the next decade any call to teach women how to "swim" for its own sake inspired moral outrage. Opponents of swimming became half hysterical as they imagined the deleterious effects on public virtue if women were allowed to commingle with men in pools and on public beaches, particularly if they did so while not fully and conservatively clothed.

  The reason was a young Au
stralian woman named Annette Kellerman—or women who admired her—because to the minds and fertile imaginations of most American men, Annette Kellerman was women's swimming—and absolutely everything that was wrong with it.

  As a child growing up in New South Wales, Kellerman suffered from some undiagnosed bone affliction, likely either polio or rickets, which left her with bowed legs, forcing her to wear heavy braces. At the suggestion of a doctor, her father insisted that Kellerman begin taking swimming lessons to strengthen her legs. In Australia, where virtually the entire population lived along the coast, taboos against swimming for both men and women were far less pronounced than elsewhere in the western world. An Englishman named Frederick Cavill and his sons pioneered the sport in Australia and were among the first swimming instructors both to teach the trudgen stroke and begin to improve upon it.

  At first Kellerman found swimming impossible, later writing, "My brothers and sisters had learned to swim in four or five lessons, but eighteen were required for me. Only a cripple can understand the intense joy that I experienced when little by little I found that my legs were growing stronger, and taking on the normal shape and normal powers with which legs of other youngsters were endowed." She advanced quickly, and by age of seventeen, in 1902, Kellerman was the 100-meter champion of New South Wales. The pretty young woman, with the support of her father, parlayed her local fame into a vaudeville routine, performing a mermaid show in a glass tank, swimming with fish. She then began making more public swims, such as one down Melbourne's Yarra River, and in 1904, at age eighteen, she traveled with her father to England, where they hoped she would find a larger audience for her mermaid show.

  Yet once Kellerman arrived in England no one knew who she was. While the stodgy English public was titillated by her act, they also found it morally offensive and—publicly anyway—ignored her. To generate publicity Kellerman began making long-distance swims in the Thames and other bodies of water. That was more agreeable. A newspaper, the Daily Mirror, became intrigued and in 1905 sponsored Kellerman in an attempt to swim the English Channel, a publicity stunt that had little chance of success. To date, the Channel had been swum successfully only once before, by the Englishman Matthew Webb in 1875. Few men, and no women, had since come close to repeating Webb's feat.