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

by Glenn Stout

  McGeehan's sentiments were echoed in columns and editorials all over the world. In Berlin the sports editor of the Zeitung am Mittag hailed her achievement as "new and conclusive proofs of the athletic emancipation of the once 'weaker sex,'...Miss Ederle's triumph is also the triumph of the modern woman athlete." The French newspaper Le Figaro heralded her as "the most glorious of the nymphs," while the London Star offered that by "knocking the men's record for the Channel swim sky high," Ederle had "given the lords of creation cause to think furiously," and other London papers heralded Trudy as "Gertrude of America." They gave her plenty of ink, but many British journalists, understandably perhaps, chose to lather their most effusive praise upon Burgess. They overlooked his French residency and embraced him as English once again. Alec Rutherford touted him for his discovery of what he termed "the Ederle course," a winning route across the Channel waters, giving nearly as much credit to his skills as navigator as to Ederle's swimming prowess.

  But in the United States, in particular, politicians, pundits, and fellow athletes fell all over themselves offering praise for Trudy. Louis Handley said, "Gertrude's swim overjoyed us all, but it surprised none in the Women's Swimming Association ... The swim was a vindication of women's capability as athletes." The acting mayor of New York, Joseph McKee, praised her for "bringing honor to the city of New York." Even New York Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert felt the need to weigh in, calling her feat "a great American accomplishment!"

  The emphasis on the "American" portion of her accomplishment by such a well-known German-American as Jacob Ruppert was no accident, for in the wake of her victory German-American groups were already claiming Trudy as their own—both the United German Societies, representing 2, 500 German-American groups in the United States just beginning to reemerge after the war, and the Manhattan Council of the Steuben Society extended public congratulations to Trudy, hoping that her triumph would help their groups regain acceptance and legitimacy. They were slapped down immediately, and the New York Times criticized such "vicarious glorification of German stock." America was not going to share its hero.

  But the swim had an immediate impact that went farther than mere words of praise, both practically and philosophically. Women's rights advocates such as Carrie Catt, a colleague of Susan B. Anthony and founder and president of the League of Women Voters, recalled the days when "it was thought that women could not throw a ball or even walk very far down the street without feeling faint." She believed that equal rights for women went "hand in hand with bodily strength," something Trudy Ederle had proven beyond all possible doubt.

  Ironically enough, as Trudy had battled the Channel, the IOC, with great reluctance and under a great deal of pressure from women's advocates around the world, had been debating whether to allow women to compete in track and field events for the first time, as arguments that touted women's strength and athleticism had been countered by those who believed that, by their very nature, women were just not cut out for sport, and that competition by women in track events was positively dangerous to a woman's delicate constitution. But just as Trudy had asked "What for?" the measure had reluctantly been approved and the IOC sanctioned competition in the 100-meter and 800-meter run as well as the 4-by-100-meter relay at the 1928 Olympics. Now that Trudy had swum the Channel, the decision that had seemed so controversial suddenly seemed conservative. Similarly, just a few days earlier, on August 3, the French tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen had become the first female tennis player to turn professional, a decision widely derided in the sporting press and elsewhere as unbecoming of a woman. But now, following Trudy's triumph, that attitude suddenly seemed quaint—if a woman could beat a man's record in sports, why should she not also enjoy the same financial benefits as a professional male athlete?

  The change did not escape notice by the French champion, perhaps the world's best-known female athlete before Trudy's triumph. Tracked down by reporters in Paris, where she was trying on gowns in anticipation of her first professional tour of America, Lenglen called Ederle "a super woman," and said, "Her exploit definitely enthrones woman in the field of sport. Contests requiring deftness, skill and adroitness, such as archery, golf and tennis, have long been recognized as woman's province, but Gertrude has definitely proved that woman is man's equal in contests requiring endurance, strength and grit." In the future, it would become ever more difficult to argue otherwise, and that was perhaps the greatest impact of all—Trudy's swim provided dramatic evidence that women were not limited by their physical differences from men, and that in fact, it was quite possible that at least in some areas they were actually better than men, a concept that just a day earlier would have been considered heresy. Tom Robinson, a well-respected swimming coach at Northwestern University and close colleague of Louis Handley, told the Associated Press that the psychological impact Trudy's swim would have on women was incalculable. "The complete conquest of fear will do more to bring about the development of the woman athlete as much as anything else," he declared. "As far as physical strength is concerned, women ... have shown a prowess equal to men. Physical education has brought about an evolution of common sense that has wrought a complete turnover not only in women's physical condition but in her whole mental attitude ... It has taught her to think freely and it has helped her to enjoy life as she never had a chance to before. As a result it has brought a new race of women athletes."

  Trudy, of course, was suddenly the de facto leader of this new race, and young girls on both continents suddenly imagined themselves to be Trudy Ederle. Yet, like so many revolutionaries, Trudy herself would not experience the full benefit of the emancipation she inspired. Instead, as the woman who spearheaded those changes, she would soon find herself caught up in the rough currents of social change.

  As yet she was still all but oblivious to the hubbub her swim had caused all around the world. But she would soon find evidence of just how much had changed.

  The night passed slowly for Trudy as she awoke a dozen times to find her tongue still swollen and feeling strange in her mouth, and her muscles still unable to settle down. She climbed out of bed at nine o'clock, and Bill Burgess came to her room after she had dressed and gave her a quick invigorating massage. She then took another hot bath and found that the longer she was awake the better she felt, as the swelling of her tongue finally began to subside. Julia Harpman dropped by, and now Trudy gave a lengthier, more circumspect interview so Harpman could begin work on a more detailed account of Trudy's own story of the swim.

  She still couldn't quite comprehend precisely what had happened, telling Harpman she felt as if she were "back at our starting point." Although she had never felt melancholy or down during the swim itself, now that it was over she was strangely unaffected. Something big had happened, she knew that, but she hadn't changed at all—yet, somehow, everything else had.

  She knew this from the scene at the beach and at the dock the night before, but Trudy hadn't seen anything yet. When she parted the curtains to check on the weather she discovered that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people gathered around the hotel. Overnight, a rumor had swept Dover that because of her trouble with customs, Trudy would leave for France first thing in the morning, and everyone in Dover hoped to get a glimpse of her before she left.

  Trudy wasn't in control of much of anything anymore. Harpman and Trudy's father were savvy enough to ask Trudy to don a swimsuit for her first public appearance. They wanted her to go back down to the water and take a swim. That was all right with Trudy—she tried to swim every day—but this would be no relaxing dip in the ocean, rather an arranged event for the press and the cameras.

  When Trudy came down from her room into the hotel lobby at about 10:00 A.M., reality hit her in the face like a rogue wave. The front desk was swamped with telegrams and bouquets of flowers, and the lobby itself was packed with well-wishers, journalists, cameramen, local governmental officials, and English bobbies trying to maintain order. Hundreds more were gathered outside the hotel, pres
sing for admittance, all just hoping for a glimpse of the young woman who only a few short months before could have walked down the street in almost any city in the world and not drawn a second glance. That was no longer possible. The world wanted her— now— and it was not going to wait.

  Trudy lasted only a few moments in the tumult before she asked to be taken away. She was hustled into the hotel dining room to catch her breath and then to the pavilion at nearby Granville Gardens, where an impromptu press conference of a sort was held. As she sat at a small table before piles of telegrams, flanked by her father, her sister, Burgess, and Helmi, who was acting as something of a security guard, Trudy took a few questions from the handful of reporters lucky enough to be allowed inside. Wearing her WSA swimsuit, Trudy looked alert and healthy, if a bit wide-eyed, as the newsreel cameras whirled in her face—but she was clearly less than comfortable, laughing nervously, glancing about anxiously, unaccustomed to being the focus of such sustained attention from so many strangers. Physically, she felt fine, with little residual soreness, although she was still a bit tired and her face was puffy from the relentless slap of the waves and the salt water. Her only problem was a sore right hand—she had already shaken so many hands it was sore to the touch. When someone approached her and grabbed her hand, she cringed and actually called out in pain, then shook and flexed her fingers.

  Nothing had prepared her for such attention. She had trained to swim the Channel, not so much to be the first woman who swam the Channel, and she kept saying that it all felt "unreal ... like a dream."

  She opened a few telegrams, including one from Jabez Wolffe, who suddenly found it advantageous to be magnanimous, causing Trudy to laugh out loud. But most of the messages were from people she had never met before, all of whom wanted something. It was embarrassing and bewildering. There were invitations to banquets and dinners, requests for her to give swimming demonstrations and speeches, and the thousand other mostly innocuous requests that come with being a celebrity. There were—she couldn't believe it!— even marriage proposals from men all over the world, people she had never met.

  There were also dozens and hundreds of offers that dripped money, and Pop Ederle separated them from the other telegrams. Vaudeville producers, book publishers, magazine editors, toothpaste and tobacco companies, everyone and anyone suddenly wanted the name Trudy Ederle on a masthead, a marquee, a byline, or a cut line.

  Trudy had known that if she swam the Channel she would reap some financial benefit—that red roadster had to be paid for somehow—but there was no precedent that allowed her to foresee what was ahead. This had never happened before—to anyone.

  Dudley Field Malone's wildest dream seemed about to come true. The attorney had been savvy enough to figure out that Trudy's triumph could be parlayed into cash, and he had thoroughly won over Henry Ederle. That was important. Trudy was still a minor, and Malone's contract, technically, was with her guardian—Henry Ederle—and not Trudy herself. In fact, Trudy deferred to her father and paid little attention to the financial side of her swim and evinced little interest in any part of it. As an athlete, Trudy was the equal of a man, but in almost every other area she was still being treated not even as a woman, but as a girl.

  Trudy's success kicked in the remainder of her contract with the Tribune-News—more than enough to pay back the money Malone advanced to her and leaving $2, 500 to spare. But that, in the parlance of the day, was mere "peanuts." Malone saw dollar signs floating on the Channel and knew that if he played his hand correctly his five-thousand-dollar advance to Trudy would pay off at odds even better than those Henry Ederle received from the oddsmakers of Lloyd's of London.

  There was just one problem—well, two actually. Dudley Field Malone wasn't in Dover. He had been in France, managing his divorce office in Paris, but left on August 4 for the United States on the French liner France and was halfway across the Atlantic when Trudy completed her swim. While he was still able to receive offers by cable while aboard the vessel, he couldn't really consult with Henry or Trudy or participate in any substantive talks concerning her post-Channel career.

  That would have to wait until Trudy was back in the United States, where the clamor for her services was already at a fever pitch. There seemed little question that Trudy—and everyone around her—would soon become very wealthy. Suzanne Lenglen's agent, the promoter C. C. Pyle, had already negotiated a fifty-thousand-dollar fee for the French star's first professional tour of America, and Trudy was now many, many times more popular. If Lenglen was worth fifty thousand dollars, Trudy was worth at least a half-million dollars, if not more.

  But with Trudy's name on everyone's lips all over the world, her picture on the cover of virtually every newspaper in the country, her achievement still fresh and with her popularity and fame at its absolute zenith, and an entire country breathlessly waiting for more, Trudy wasn't going to America. Although any ship sailing for the United States would have welcomed her aboard as their guest just for the publicity, her father had booked passage to return to America on the Berengaria—on August 21. In the meantime he decided to take Trudy to Germany to visit with her grandmother and other relatives.

  Trudy didn't really care—although she was anxious to get home and see her mother, she had Meg with her and looked forward to seeing her grandmother and cousins—but the decision to go to Germany was the first of a number of poor decisions made by her father and by Malone that would hasten Trudy back to anonymity. The most famous woman in the world was hardly dry, yet her notoriety was already about to fade.

  But in Dover, she was still a hero. After the press conference Helmi and Louis Timson delivered her back to the hotel atop their shoulders to keep the crowd off her, and for the rest of the afternoon Trudy was ushered all over town to meet this person, greet that one, and have her picture taken here and there, including before a bust of Captain Webb in front of the Hotel Burlington. She even managed to check in with the customs office, where her reception was much more pleasant—and briefer—than the previous evening's.

  Before sailing for Boulogne, Trudy went back home, down to the water, and with hundreds of onlookers gathered on the beach, she dove back into the sea. For a moment she forgot the last fifteen or sixteen hours, and as she swam she felt the stiffness leave her body and her anxiety begin to fade. Had it been up to her, she would have kept swimming, but it would be a long time before she could just swim for herself again. The real purpose of the swim was to provide the newsreel cameramen some footage of Trudy stepping onshore and reenacting her arrival less than twenty-four hours earlier. They had complained that due to the fact that she had reached Kingsdown at night, there were no photographs or film of Trudy walking out of the water, and after all, that was what was important.

  Trudy dutifully did her duty, reenacting her arrival, only this time in broad daylight and being enveloped by the crowd. Within a week the staged shot would be foisted off to the world as genuine. In fact, most newsreel accounts of her achievement not only utilized such staged footage, but film of her from her failed swim the previous summer, which had been taken under better weather conditions and was far superior. Audiences were so eager to see Trudy that they seemed not to notice the changing boats, weather conditions, coaches, or, most notably, the swimsuit and the goggles Trudy wore while swimming.

  Later that afternoon Trudy and her entourage reboarded the Alsace, crossed the Channel once more, landed at Boulogne to a raucous reception, and then returned to Cape Gris-Nez, where Pop Ederle was still in a celebratory mood and held a party at the hotel. Trudy turned in early and finally received a little rest, but the next day Trudy, her father and sister, Julia Harpman, and Arthur Sorenson left for Germany, where she was looking forward, at last, to the opportunity to get some extended rest away from the crowds. Bill Burgess was left behind, his job done, and was disappointed that Henry Ederle didn't even see fit to give him a bonus, but after all, had it been up to him, Trudy never would have finished. He sought out Lillian Cannon and began tra
ining her again.

  Yet before she left Cape Gris-Nez, Trudy was able to do something she had been trying to do ever since she walked onto the beach. She had been so busy and so tired, that apart from a brief telegram, she had never had a chance to write a letter to her own mother. Julia had offered to do it for her, but Trudy wanted to write this one herself.

  My Dearest Loving Mother:

  We did it, Mother, we did it! The trick is turned and aren't you just so proud? We are all so happy. England and France are rejoicing in the glory. Oh, the crowds that follow us here and there. The paper people are just impossible, but grand.

  Mom, I had the feeling of sure success—just wouldn't give up. Not once was I on the point of abandoning the swim. The good God led me on safely. It all went so quick ... Get there or die, that was my motto ... Really Mom, I can't dope it all out yet...[Margaret] was just lovely, did everything in her power to get me over. Didn't I say I need people like her? Pop, too, was helping me on, only he felt bad, I mean sorry for me. He just had to cry and, Mommie, he wants to say that you are too soft!...

  Coming back from England yesterday they buried me in flowers.

  How happy everyone is.

  Last night pop gave a party. We did it. No more worrying!

  Love and kisses galore for you, dear Mother. I am only your

  "Trudy."

  25. Swept Away

  THERE WAS NO end to it.

  As Trudy traveled from Cape Gris-Nez to Calais and then to Germany, stopping first in Stuttgart before finally making her way to Bissingen, where she hoped to spend some time relaxing with her family, Trudy was swarmed over by the crowds, feted by government officials, and otherwise swept along in a frenzy of adoration for which she still wasn't prepared. Thirty thousand people greeted her in Stuttgart, packing the streets around the train station, forcing her to participate in an impromptu parade just to leave town. And when she arrived in Bissingen, it was utterly unrecognizable. The quiet little village was flooded with visitors.