Top 100 momentsNo. 85
Ederle beats the Channel
Gertrude Ederle swims the English Channel faster than the men who had done it. A woman’s endurance record becomes a ticker-tape story in New York.
August 1926. Gertrude Ederle, 20, an Olympic swimmer from New York, covers the Channel in 14 hours and 31 minutes, better than the men’s mark. The water is cold, the tide is a bully, and the press boat is full of people waiting for her to fail.
Manhattan gives her a ticker-tape parade. The 1920s had sold the New Woman in magazines. Ederle sells her in salt water. Long-distance swimming stops being a male stunt with a footnote.
Channel crossings are still a niche. This one was a headline. A kid in a wool bathing suit made the distance look like an argument about what women were for.