'Young Woman and the Sea'
Forgotten and rediscovered, Gertrude Ederle's story makes a film splash
“Her legacy is everywhere you look,” says Glenn Stout, author of ‘Young Woman and the Sea’.
In the late 1990s, Stout was working with David Halberstam on a new book, ‘The Best American Sports Writing of the Century’, when he came across archival records about a celebrated female swimmer.
“I was surprised who she was, since I’ve never even heard of her,” he tells Rmag.
Digging further into Gertrude Ederle’s story, the freelance writer was convinced that her remarkable feat was underappreciated, if not overlooked, by contemporaries.
Stout published his book in 2009 and six years later, Hollywood came calling with a rights offer.
Jeff Nathanson, the screenwriter, Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer, and Joachim Ronning, the director, had never heard of Trudie either.
BUY- 'Young Woman and the Sea'
“All of us had teenage daughters and we wanted to do a story for them,” Stout laughs.
Following developmental delays, the movie, starring Daisy Ridley as Trudie, was finally released by Disney in May of this year.
“Broadly, the film is true to actual events and it renders the difficulty of the swim fairly well,” notes Stout who also served as consultant to the screen production.
On August 6, 1926, twenty-year-old Trudie Ederle swam the English Channel in 14 hours and 34 minutes, shattering the men’s record by nearly 2 hours.
The cold and turbulent waters of the Channel were first conquered by English seaman Matthew Webb in 1875.
Hundreds made the attempt, but only four other successful crossings followed before Trudie became the first woman to complete the swim.
The American champion who was born to German immigrants was already an accomplished athlete, holding 29 U.S. national and international swimming marks.
At the 1924 Olympics, she nabbed gold in the 4x100m relay, bronze in the 100m freestyle and another bronze in the 400m freestyle.
She turned pro the following year and swam the 22 miles from New York’s Battery Park to New Jersey’s Sandy Hook in a record 7 hours and 11 minutes.
That set her up for the 21-mile Channel plunge, which at the time was the swimmer’s supreme test. She failed on her first try but then returned the next summer for an historic finish.
Back home, the ‘Queen of the Waves’ was the first woman to be honored with a massive ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan. President Coolidge called her ‘America’s Best Girl’.
But then her star started to fade.
The Chicago Tribune and N.Y. Daily News, the 2 papers that sponsored her trip and screamed headlines of her aquatic exploits, had moved on with other sporting news.
Less than a year later, Charles Lindbergh also grabbed the public’s attention and became the new hero when he flew the first plane across the Atlantic Ocean.
“One of the reasons Trudie was forgotten quickly is because she didn’t seize celebrityhood,” Stout points out.
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After her triumphant return, Trudie performed briefly in vaudeville and did celebrity swim exhibitions, but in general shunned the spotlight.
She did not compete at the 1928 Olympics and would spend her time teaching swimming to deaf children.
As it turned out, Trudie was partially deaf herself due to measles she had contracted at a young age and was advised by doctors to abandon competitive swimming.
As a result, she was private and socially awkward and in later life never married, or had children of her own, finding comfort instead with her extended family.
The swimming prodigy lived a quiet life, her hearing increasingly deteriorating with time. In 1933, she also suffered a spine injury falling down a staircase, leaving her handicapped for several years.
By 1951, her record was already beaten by 2 other women and the prestige of the Channel challenge had also lost its cache.
In many ways Trudie was a creature of her time, embodying the spirit of the 1920s when women broke grounds and found their independence.
They got the vote in 1919 and celebrated the post-WWI decade by shortening their hair, lifting their hemlines, puffing on cigarettes, and swinging to the Charleston.
In sports, American golf champion Edith Cummings became the first woman to grace the cover of Time (1924) and French tennis star Suzanne Lenglen dominated Wimbledon.
While Trudie stood on her own as a pioneer in smashing stereotypes that women were physically inferior to men, hers was a personal odyssey.
“From Trudie’s perspective it was a personal quest rather than a larger political question,” explains Stout.
Trudie’s older sister, Meg, was a swimmer and she encouraged her to pursue the sport competitively, especially as she improved.
Because of her hearing condition, the younger sibling found solace in the water, which became a medium for building confidence and pursuing her goal.
Trudie also wanted to please Charlotte Epstein who ran the Women’s Swimming Association (SWA) where she trained.
Epstein founded the SWA in 1917. She fought for women’s inclusion in the American Athletic Union, especially in the water borne tournaments.
Epstein realized that the SWA needed to make its mark because they wanted to continue participating in the Olympics and make inroads into women’s sports.
Says Stout, “Today, you see Trudie Ederle in the WNBA, in soccer, in tennis, and all the sports where women have claimed their rightful place.”
Trudie died on November 30, 2003 at the age of 98. She is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York, where visitors continue to pay homage to the inspiring figure.
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