Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel on the sixth of August, 1926, at nineteen years old, and in a time faster than any of the five men who had preceded her. She was a New York Olympian, a national hero, and — in the last decade of the Sandlass Beach Club — the guest of honor at the club's annual swim awards. Hank Sandlass keeps the photograph. She died in 2003 at ninety-eight.
Appears in
Are you family?
If Gertrude Ederle is part of your story, we want to hear it. Send a photograph, a document, a paragraph of what your family remembered — anything you have that would add to the record.
Local Lookout
Sign up for a monthly note from the archive — new chapters, new voices, new items on the Photo Map. One email a month, or less.