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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Gertrude Caroline Ederle[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||
Nickname(s) | "Trudy", "Gertie", "Queen of the Waves"[2][3] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1905-10-23)October 23, 1905[4] New York, New York, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | November 30, 2003(2003-11-30) (aged 98) Wyckoff, New Jersey, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 5 in (165 cm) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 141 lb (64 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Women's Swimming Association | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Gertrude Caroline Ederle (/ˈɛdərli/; October 23, 1905 – November 30, 2003) was an American competitionswimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman toswim across the English Channel. Among other nicknames, the press called her "Queen of the Waves".
Ederle grew up inManhattan where her father ran a butcher shop onAmsterdam Avenue, and learned to swim inHighlands, New Jersey.[5]: 21–22, 67, 127 She later trained at the Women's Swimming Association (WSA), founded byCharlotte Epstein. The WSA was a historic organization whose leadership and members campaigned for Women's suffrage, and worked both to create more swimming events open to women and to increase their participation in the Olympics. Ederle joined the club when she was only twelve and immediately took to learning theAmerican crawl, developed at the WSA by Head CoachLouis Handley. The same year, she set her first world record in the 880-yard freestyle, becoming the youngest world record holder in swimming. She set eight more world records after that, seven of them in 1922 atBrighton Beach.[6] In total, Ederle held 29 US national and world records from 1921 until 1925.[7]
At the1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Ederle won a gold medal as a member of the first-place U.S. team in the4×100 meter freestyle relay. Together with her American relay teammatesEuphrasia Donnelly,Ethel Lackie andMariechen Wehselau, she set a new world record of 4:58.8 in the event final. Individually, she received bronze medals for finishing third in thewomen's 100-meter freestyle andwomen's 400-meter freestyle races.[6] The U.S. Olympic team had its ownticker-tape parade in 1924.[8]
In 1925, Ederle turned professional. The same year she swam the 22 miles (35 km) fromBattery Park toSandy Hook in 7 hours and 11 minutes, a record time that stood for 81 years before being broken by Australian swimmerTammy van Wisse.[9] Ederle's nephew Bob later described his aunt's swim as a "midnight frolic" and a "warm-up" for her laterswim across the English Channel.[9][10]
In 1925, the Women's Swimming Association sponsoredHelen Wainwright and Ederle for an attempt at swimming across the English Channel. Helen Wainwright cancelled due to an injury, so Ederle decided to go to France on her own. She trained withJabez Wolffe, a swimmer who had attempted to swim the English Channel 22 times.[11] On August 18, 1925, Ederle made her first attempt at swimming the Channel whereupon she was disqualified when Wolffe ordered another swimmer (who was keeping her company in the water), Ishak Helmy, to recover her from the water. She bitterly disagreed with Wolffe's decision and it was speculated that he did not want Ederle to succeed.[5]: 82
She returned to New York and began training with coachBill Burgess who had successfully swum the Channel in 1911. Ederle also received a contract from both theNew YorkDaily News andChicago Tribune that paid her expenses and provided her with a modest salary. Approximately one year after her first attempt, she was successful in swimming the Channel.[12] She started atCap Gris-Nez in France at 07:08 am on August 6, 1926, and came ashore atKingsdown, Kent, 14 hours and 34 minutes later. The first person to greet her was a British immigration officer who requested a passport from "the bleary-eyed, waterlogged teenager".[13] Her record stood untilFlorence Chadwick swam the Channel in 1950 in 13 hours and 23 minutes.[5]: 247
Prior to Ederle, only five men had completed the swim across the English Channel, with the best time of 16 hours, 33 minutes byEnrique Tirabocchi.[14]
When Ederle returned home, she was greeted with aticker-tape parade in Manhattan, with more than two million people along the parade route.[5]: iv, 247
She made an arrangement withEdward L. Hyman to appear at theBrooklyn Mark Strand Theatre, who paid her significantly more than any prior individual performer.[15] Subsequently, she went on to play herself in a movie (Swim Girl, Swim starringBebe Daniels) and tour thevaudeville circuit, including laterBilly Rose's Aquacade. She metPresident Coolidge and had a song and a dance step named for her. Her manager,Dudley Field Malone, was not able to capitalize on her fame and popularity, diminishing the financial potential of her vaudeville career. TheGreat Depression also affected the success of her career. A fall down the steps of her apartment building in 1933 twisted her spine and left her bedridden for several years, but she recovered sufficiently to appear at the1939 New York World's Fair.[5]: 238–40
As a result of childhoodmeasles, Ederle had poor hearing most of her life, and by the 1940s had lost most of her hearing. Aside from her time in vaudeville, she worked for much of her life as a swimming instructor for deaf children.[6] She never married and by 2001 lived in a nursing home.[10] She died on November 30, 2003, inWyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 98.[2] She was interred in theWoodlawn Cemetery inthe Bronx,New York City.
Ederle was inducted into theInternational Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1965.[7] She was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame in 2003.[16]
An annual swim from New York City'sBattery Park toSandy Hook, New Jersey, is named the Ederle Swim to honor her, and follows the course she swam.[17][18]
The Gertrude Ederle Recreation Center, which opened in 2013 and is located on theUpper West Side of Manhattan, was named for her, and includes an indoor swimming pool.[19][20]
At the northern side of Meadow Lake inFlushing Meadows–Corona Park, Ederle Terrace commemorates the location of an amphitheater where she performed during the1939 New York World's Fair.[21]
ABBC Radio 4 play,The Great Swim, by Anita Sullivan, based on the 2008 book of the same name byGavin Mortimer, was first broadcast on September 1, 2010, and repeated on January 23, 2012. It dramatizes Ederle's record-breaking crossing of the English Channel.[22]
A memorial to Gertrude Ederle's historic channel swim was installed in Kingsdown in 2023. The memorial plaque marks the Oldstairs Bay beach where Ederle came ashore.[23]
A biographical film,Young Woman and the Sea, based on the book of the same name by Glenn Stout, was produced byWalt Disney Pictures andJerry Bruckheimer, directed byJoachim Rønning, and starringDaisy Ridley as Ederle. The film was released on May 31, 2024.[24]
| Records | ||
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| Preceded by | Women's 100-meter freestyle world record-holder (long course) June 30, 1923 – July 19, 1924 | Succeeded by |
| Men's Team |  | |
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| Women's Team | ||
