The 1920s was a decade made for explorers and adventurers. After the horrors of the Great War, the world needed heroes as it entered a glamorous new age – and it found them in the likes of , , and , whose exploits remain vivid more than 100 years later. But one such hero has faded from memory: Gertrude Ederle (pronounced ‘Ed-er-ly’), a shy 19-year-old New Yorker who was the most famous woman in the world in the summer of 1926.
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel – an achievement in itself, and one made all the more impressive by the fact that she swam it faster than any of the five men who had gone before her. Although her feat has become commonplace today, she deserves recognition for inspiring a generation of young women. Ederle was a gifted swimmer who represented her country in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
It was during this time, as the American team's ship sailed up the channel, that Ederle had the idea to swim across it. The previous year in 1923, Henry Sullivan had become the first American to swim the 21 miles that separated Dover from Calais, although he had actually swum more than 50 miles because of the strong currents – a factor that accounted for the 1,000 failed attempts by 200 swimmers since Matthew Webb's historic first crossing in 1875. There were other challenges, too – such as the debilitating temperature of the water and the capricious weather – but the main problem was the fact that the tide shifted direction every s.
