Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (15 page)

I
T WAS RAINING.

Just before 2:00 on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 1, 1922, what local newspapers still referred to as fifty-two "mermaids" assembled near the shoreline at Manhattan Beach, a resort community on the eastern edge of Coney Island, the southernmost point of the borough of Brooklyn. Dressed in competition swimwear consisting of one-piece, form-fitting, woolen "athletic tank suits," which began just above the knee and extended over the shoulders, and holding bathing caps, the young women, mostly in their teens and early twenties, huddled together in bunches beneath umbrellas, trying, for the time being, to stay dry.

Although it was midsummer, the weather along the shore was not cooperating. A storm system had stalled just off the coast. The forecast called for thunderstorms inland, but along the shore a brisk wind spinning in from the northeast delivered a steady, driving rain. The air temperature barely reached seventy degrees. The breeze raised a few whitecaps in the channel between Coney Island and the Rockaways, and the air smelled of the sea. On most such summer days, the beach normally would have been all but empty but for a few hardy vacationers determined to be outside. Some might have chosen to duck in and out of the attractions along the boardwalk at Coney Island, or else have a relaxing lunch at one of the nearby re-sort hotels and watch the surf.

But today a crowd of several hundred men, women, and children braved the rain and stood beneath umbrellas on the beach. Many in the crowd were friends and family of the young "mermaids," but a fair number—mostly men—had no personal connection to the young ladies at all. Many had come to Manhattan Beach just to see what all the fuss was about.

For much of the past month New Yorkers who were close readers of the
Tribune
had had their curiosity piqued by a series of stories touting what the newspaper referred to as the "international women's long distance swimming championship," a three and half mile open-water swimming race for women, sponsored by the newspaper and Joseph P. Day, a wealthy New York real estate developer. The first such race had been held ten years before, in 1912, and was sponsored by the Women's Life-Saving League. Apart from a hiatus during World War I, the competition had been held annually ever since but generally had drawn little attention.

In the four years since Trudy Ederle and her sisters joined the WSA, much had changed. The success of the American women swimmers at the 1920 Olympic Games had provided the sport of women's swimming with a beachhead. Although women's swimming was hardly a popular spectator sport, in the wake of the Olympics even critics of female athletics had come to accept the reality that women were going to swim and compete. In 1921 the annual long-distance race even acquired a sponsor, the Brighton Beach Baths, a nearby private club that Day himself had rebuilt after the original Baths burned. That race had been won by Thelda Bleibtrey, winner of three gold medals in swimming at the 1920 Olympics. Bleibtrey, an attractive blonde, had drawn significant press attention to the event, not just for her appearance, but because the press loved repeating her inspirational story about taking up swimming and joining the WSA as therapy for curvature of the spine. Her participation in the race had drawn a surprisingly large crowd to the long-distance swim. Indeed, soon after her victory she announced that she intended to become a professional and left the ranks of amateur swimming. She worked as an instructor, purchased Annette Kellerman's indoor swimming tank, and created a vaudeville act—and even got the attention of the motion picture industry, which gave her a screen test.

Joseph P. Day duly noted the size of the crowd in 1921 and, in 1922, took over personal sponsorship of the event, awarding a trophy known as the Day Cup to the best team of swimmers to complete the course. The developer had recently completed a 114-home development on Manhattan Beach. He had extensive plans for more such developments in the surrounding area and wanted to draw attention both to his properties and the surrounding community. All summer long the Businessman's League in nearby Atlantic City, New Jersey, had been touting its Fall Frolic, a five-day celebration that would take place in September and culminate in a bathing beauty contest, the winner of which would be dubbed "Miss America." So far the ploy had resulted in plenty of publicity for Atlantic City, even before the contest. Day likely drew some inspiration from this event and concluded that the presence of four dozen young beauties in swimwear at Manhattan Beach would prove to be a sure-fire attraction.

He was right. Most of the crowd in Manhattan Beach had not assembled due to their deep love of the sport of swimming. Apart from friends and family members of the swimmers, the attraction for many was, to be blunt, still the girls themselves. Only in the last few years had it finally become acceptable for a woman to wear a bathing suit that was even remotely practical, or exposed any flesh whatsoever, and then only if she was swimming in an athletic competition. At the very least, most "respectable" women still wore tank suits that extended to the knee and kept their woolen stockings pulled up high, leaving only the face and arms exposed, and many still wore the cumbersome and even dangerous suits that consisted of long-sleeved heavy wool blouses, long flowing skirts, and stockings.

But the "mermaids" participating in swimming competitions held to a more relaxed standard. They were allowed to swim bare legged and wear tank suits that were somewhat more comfortable and revealing than those worn for simple recreation. The athletic tank suit was often made from a lighter woolen knit, fit the body closer, and stopped at midthigh.

Nowhere else, not even on the stage, were women allowed to wear such revealing outfits. Although the era of the flapper was beginning, skirts had yet to rise above the knee. Indeed, even modest tank suits were still legally banned from being worn at many public beaches, and women who entered the water wearing anything less than the standard swimming skirt and blouse still risked arrest. Each summer in and around New York, several women were arrested for doing just that. In fact in 1919 two WSA swimmers, Thelda Bleibtrey and Charlotte Boyle, had been arrested not only for wearing the still-risque tank suit at a public beach, but for removing their stockings.

The WSA recognized the controversy and, in an attempt to deflect criticism, made certain that the suits worn by its members were plain and dully colored, unadorned by any decoration apart from the WSA emblem on the front of each suit. Furthermore, each member of the group had to adhere to a strict moral code and strict standards of behavior and were always chaperoned at WSA events. The only place WSA swimmers were allowed to be "fast" was in the water.

The curious among the crowd that gathered along the beach or in pleasure boats just offshore were not held to the same moral standards. The binoculars and opera glasses carried by some of the many men in the crowd were not intended to be used to examine the swimming styles of the participants as much as they were to examine the stylish participants themselves.

One after another, long wooden rowboats meant for ocean travel, known as dories, were pushed into the water, each one manned by an oarsman and a pilot and carrying a swimmer. Eventually more than four dozen such boats, one for each competitor, were all headed southeast, across Rockaway Inlet, toward a destination just off Riche's Point. As the dories pulled away from shore, dozens of pleasure boats anchored offshore set sail after them.

Few spectators even knew the names of many of the swimmers, and if they did, it was only because of a series of prerace stories in the
Tribune
and other New York newspapers. Most stories tried to drum up interest in the race by touting the swimming achievements of the favorites—and reprinting their photographs.

The main attraction was seventeen-year-old Hilda James of England. The Liverpool native, widely acknowledged as Europe's greatest woman swimmer, had been a medalist at the 1920 Olympics and was the world record holder in both the 300- and 440-yard swims. It didn't hurt that in the photographs in the newspapers James appeared to be quite attractive. Even though the newspapers published only a head shot of the young swimmer, that was enough to tantalize male readers into showing up to see the rest of her in person. Like most swimmers of the era, James wore her hair in a kind of bob, the hairstyle currently favored in the motion picture industry. With a bit of imagination it was possible to look at a photograph of James and see a bit of film star Mary Pickford in her features.

The press touted the race as a showdown between James and her American Olympian counterparts, Helen Wainwright, Aileen Riggin, and a precocious young teammate, fourteen-year-old sensation Ethel McGary, who had recently set the American 300-yard record. Yet while the four swimmers were, in fact, among the most accomplished of the era, in truth the main attraction to the event was as much due to young womanhood on display as it was to competition.

It was a forgone conclusion that a team from the WSA would win the coveted Cup. Wainwright, Riggin, and McGary made up the first of two, three-girl teams representing the club in Cup competition, but thirty-three of the remaining forty-seven swimmers competing as individuals wore suits bearing the "WSA" emblem on their chests.

After a good thirty minutes of hard pulling, for each dory was running against the changing tide, each boat slowed as it approached Riche's Point, where a tug waited. On board were Joseph P. Day himself, several newspaper reporters, and assorted race officials, including Epstein and Louis de Breda Handley. As the dories pulled up alongside the boat, Epstein checked off each swimmer, making certain that all fifty-two entrants were at the start. It then took another twenty or thirty minutes to assemble the boats in something approaching order, stretched in a line across nearly a quarter mile of open ocean, facing northward toward Point Breeze, parallel with the far shore.

The rain and accompanying wind and chop made keeping the dories in place something of a challenge, but they were an absolute necessity in such a race. Many of the swimmers had never before competed in a race of more than five hundred yards, and even then they had done so only in the protected confines of a pool. This race was something else entirely, an open-ocean course of three and a half miles. The swimmers would be subjected to the tides and currents and whatever other surprises the water might hold. For safety reasons, each swimmer would be trailed by a dory. Not only would the pilot of the boat shout instructions and help keep each swimmer on course, but at the first sign of trouble he could pluck the swimmer from the water.

One by one, as the scheduled 3:00
P.M.
start of the race approached, each girl climbed over the side of her dory and entered the water, swimming a few strokes back and forth, then dog-paddling to stay warm, before returning to the boat and clinging to the side while awaiting the start of the race. Although it was August, the water had not quite reached its warmest temperature of the season—that would not come until September. Still, the temperature of the shallow waters of the inlet was comfortable, hovering around seventy degrees, warm enough for the swimmers to remain in the water for an hour or more on the muggy afternoon, despite the wind and the rain, without risking hypothermia.

The course was simple: It began from Riche's Point and extended a half mile due north toward Point Breeze, just over a mile east of Manhattan Beach, where spar buoy number 9, marking the local shipping lane, was anchored offshore. From there each swimmer would round the buoy and head west, swimming parallel to the shore for another three miles, past Manhattan Beach, before turning north and swimming back to shore directly in front of the Brighton Beach Baths. Two temporary towers erected in the shallows served as the finish line.

As laid out, the course was not particularly dangerous, but it could be. Only seven years before, in 1915, when the race had been sponsored by the Women's Life-Saving League, race officials had neglected to account for the influence of the tide and local currents, which impacted swimmers just as the tides in the English Channel did. Swimmers found themselves either swimming in place or being swept out to sea. Every single swimmer had to be pulled from the water, causing those who thought swimming was beyond the capability of women to smile with knowing satisfaction. But the race was then rescheduled during a more fortuitous tide and went off without incident. Organizers learned their lessons and in subsequent years made certain to consult tidal charts far ahead of time to make sure the race would run with the tide. Only at the start of the race, when swimmers would be at a right angle to the current, would the tide prove to be a problem. The poor weather made the waters of the inlet a bit choppy, but that was more a nuisance than a real danger.

As the start of the race approached a few pleasure boats strung out along the course, although most hung near the start, jockeying for position. Many planned to shadow the swimmers, sailing a parallel course that kept as many girls as possible within sight.

Finally, at 3:30
P.M.,
all the swimmers were in the water and the dories were more or less even. On the main boat a race official raised a starter's pistol into the air and fired a shot signaling the start of the race. In an instant, fifty-two young women let loose of the dories and started to swim toward Point Breeze.

For a few moments the water fairly churned with swimmers as each girl set off, arms whirling and legs kicking. Some spectators unfamiliar with modern swimming methods couldn't resist pointing and shaking their head in befuddlement, for although Handley's American crawl had been used by WSA swimmers from the very start of the organization, the stroke was still something of a novelty to the general public and was seldom seen outside sparsely attended swim meets.