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Summary
Summary
Gertrude Ederle won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics, but she really grabbed attention two years later when she became not only the first woman to swim the English Channel, but beat the times of all five men who had previously performed this feat. An icon of her time, Gertrude showed how women needn't come second.
Author Notes
TIM DAHLBERG is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. He has been a sports writer for more than twenty-five years. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. MARY EDERLE WARD is Gertrude Ederle's niece and her caretaker for the last twelve years of her life. Gertrude passed on to her an extensive archive of more than 1,500 newspaper clippings, magazine articles and other background materials on her life. BRENDA GREENE is an author of three books, an editor, and a writer.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-In August 1926, 20-year-old Gertrude Ederle not only became the first woman to swim the English Channel, but she also did it in record time, beating by nearly two hours the fastest of the five men who had preceded her. Dahlberg was allowed access to Ederle's unpublished memoir and her archive of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, and memorabilia. He focuses on the period from 1925, when Ederle made her first, unsuccessful Channel-crossing attempt to 1926, when she succeeded. Ederle was one of the first female sports celebrities, and Dahlberg is an engaging writer who does a good job of putting her and her accomplishment into the context of the 1920s and the drive, especially in America, to establish famous "firsts." He does not fulfill the promise of the book's subtitle, however. Ederle's accomplishment was not so much "incredible" as it was a combination of luck and dogged determination, and the only way she "changed the nation" was by introducing the two-piece swimsuit and wraparound goggles. Ederle's brief moment of fame did not have any lasting effects. The second woman to swim the Channel did it only weeks after Ederle, and a man broke her record soon after that. The book works as a piece of Americana and perhaps as a cautionary tale for publicity-hungry athletes.-Sarah Flowers, formerly at Santa Clara County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The year 1926 was a banner one for American sports: Jack Dempsey fought Gene Tunney in the biggest heavyweight fight ever, Bobby Jones won his first British Open title and second U.S. Open title, and Babe Ruth made a comeback for the Yankees by smashing home runs at a prodigious rate. On August 6 that year, Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle joined this company, thrilling the world by becoming the first woman to swim the English Channel. A fast swimmer, she bested the records already set by several men who had conquered the treacherous waters before her, and the U.S. festively embraced its new heroine with a ticker-tape parade on lower Broadway in New York City. America's enchantment with its young heroine soon faded, however, because the shy Ederle was uninterested in keeping up her public activities and appearances, and by the time she died in 2003 she had slipped into relative obscurity. Drawing on the massive archive of letters and newspaper articles that Ederle's niece, Mary, made available, AP sportswriter Dahlberg recreates the English Channel swim moment by moment. Dahlberg's pedantic prose and workmanlike account of Ederle's breathtaking feat, however, is as joyless as Ederle's swim was triumphant. Surprisingly, Ederle's almost forgotten feat is the subject of two other recent books, Glenn Stout's Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (Houghton Mifflin, June 2009) and Gavin Mortimer's The Great Swim (Walker, 2008). (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Workmanlike biography of the first woman to swim the English Channel demonstrates that fame is fleeting and a moment of youthful glory is no guarantee of a glamorous life. Associated Press sports columnist Dahlberg (Fight Town: Las VegasThe Boxing Capital of the World, 2004), aided here by his subject's niece and by business writer Greene, bases much of his account on newspaper clippings in the personal archives of Gertrude Ederle (19052003), supplemented by her unfinished, unpublished memoirs. The authors begin with Ederle's failed Channel crossing in 1925 and her disappointing performance at the 1924 Olympics (only one gold medal and two bronze). The details of her preparations for the cross-Channel swim in the summer of 1926 and the challenges of the feat are entertainingly recounted, but the narrative begins to falter after that. Dahlberg presents Ederle as an agent of change, citing her design of a body-hugging two-piece silk bathing suit in an era when women wore heavy wool "swimming costumes" that concealed their bodies, and noting the enthusiasm with which feminists greeted her achievement in breaking the men's speed record for a cross-Channel swim. She was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City and had a brief career in vaudeville before the public lost interest in the shy, stocky, hearing-impaired young woman whose genuine talent for swimming was difficult to capitalize on. Not only was Ederle's manager a poor businessman, but there was little interest in swimmers for stage or screen. Adding to her difficulties, she broke her pelvis in a fall in 1933. Ederle's decline into obscurity was halted briefly when Billy Rose hired her for his Aquacade at the 1939 World's Fair, but the woman who had been named top athlete of the year in 1926 was not even on the ballots in 1944. Contrary to its expectation-raising subtitle, a sad story of no compelling current import. For more historical context, see Gavin Mortimer's The Great Swim (2008). Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In 1926, Trudy Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel and did it faster than the five men who preceded her. She was honored with a ticker-tape parade in her native New York that drew more than two million celebrants. With a 1924 Olympic gold medal also in her trophy case, she may have been America's first female sports hero. As with Glenn Stout's recent biography of Ederle, Young Woman and the Sea (2009), Dahlberg an Associated Press columnist and coauthors Mary Ward (Ederle's niece) and Brenda Greene recount Ederle's rise in the relatively new venue of competitive women's swimming, her Olympic triumph, the Channel attempts, and the brief afterglow of fame. There was little overt drama or controversy in Ederle's life before or after her fame peaked, but the authors make up for that by providing a vivid sense of the Roaring Twenties and the media storm that accompanied the Channel crossing. Today a comparable accomplishment would generate a lifetime of media appearances, but Ederle almost immediately faded back into a pleasant if uneventful life. An interesting slice of American sports history.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Trudy Ederle, who died in 2003 at age 98, was the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926. For several years, her fame had been uproarious, her achievement thought earth-shattering. She enjoyed New York's biggest ticker tape parade, had her own swimsuit line, and had Americans rethinking women's athletic capabilities. After a semisuccessful vaudeville tour, her career declined; she turned to giving children swimming lessons and, later, selling dresses in a shop. Although the shy and hard-of-hearing Ederle failed to cash in on her fame, she felt satisfied with her career and resented those who deemed her ultimate anonymity a tragedy. These two biographies help readers understand the age of "ballyhoo" and "wonderful nonsense," as Stout cites sportswriter Westbrook Pegler referring to the Twenties. Sportswriter Dahlberg (Fight Town: Las Vegas-the Boxing Capital of the World) had access to Ederle's diary and unpublished memoir, but both writers were able to re-create vividly the dramatic events, largely from published reporting and interviews. The writers emphasize different aspects of the story: Dahlberg discusses topics like the revolution in women's swimsuits and the German American community and devotes nearly half his book to Ederle's post-swim life and career. Stout, who has edited The Best American Sports Writing annually, delves into the history of U.S. swimming, how geology shaped the fearsome tides and currents in the channel, and Ederle's failed first attempt. Still, they both employ the same approach: a popular social history that brings to life a woman, her era, and her remarkable feat. Both books make for very entertaining reading, with Stout's given a slight edge for more picturesque writing. Although neither book uses rigorous scholarly footnoting, either is recommended for all scholarly as well as public libraries. (Dahlberg photos not seen.)-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. ix |
| 1 "Bring on Your Old Channel" | p. 1 |
| 2 Humbled but Not Beaten | p. 27 |
| 3 Suited for a Swim | p. 47 |
| 4 Swifter, Higher, Stronger | p. 60 |
| 5 Different Time, Same Old Channel | p. 79 |
| 6 A Promise from Pop | p. 100 |
| 7 "Come out, Gertie." "What for?" | p. 116 |
| 8 The Celluloid Web | p. 137 |
| 9 Channelitis Strikes Cape Gris-Nez | p. 152 |
| 10 A Hero's Welcome | p. 170 |
| 11 The Next One Has to Be a Blonde | p. 193 |
| 12 "Don't Weep for Me" | p. 224 |
| Epilogue | p. 244 |
| Notes | p. 251 |
| Bibliography | p. 279 |
| Index | p. 285 |