Stendhal Syndrome

            This week is a little off.  I’ve been much busier than normal (I got a job, yay!), and haven’t been able to research as much as I’d like.  Oddly, this means I’m doing a new topic every week, which winds up being more research ultimately since it’s more topics, but each entry needs less information so…  This week is also weird because it’s not, strictly speaking, a history topic.  When listening to Sawbones (if you haven’t listened to this podcast go do it right now), Stendhal Syndrome came up in one of their episodes – I think it was the fainting episode, given what it is, but I’m not positive on that.  It sounded weird and interesting, so I thought why not?  Also, my husband has wanted to read The Red and the Black by Stendhal for a while now so I’d heard of the guy before.

            Briefly on Stendhal himself.  He was born Marie-Henri Beyle on January 23, 1783 in Grenoble and died March 23, 1842 in Paris.  The Red and the Black is his most well-known novel, but he wrote six novels, two biographies, a memoir, some nonfiction, and a few novellas.  Stendhal’s works were written in a realistic style at a time when Romanticism was popular.  He used a number of different pseudonyms before settling on Stendhal.  Stendal was a town in Germany where he stayed near once and where he fell in love; he added the ‘h’ to make the pronunciation clearer.

            In 1817, Stendhal travelled to Italy and was just in awe of Florence.  In his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio, he wrote “As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (that same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of the nerves); the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground” (1).  This description is what would lead to the condition known as Stendhal Syndrome.

            First off, Stendhal Syndrome is not recognized in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Apparently it’s pretty much just a European thing, heh.  Stendhal Syndrome – also known as Florence Syndrome, hyperkulturemia, and tourist syndrome – is described as “A psychosomatic response – tachycardia, vertigo, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations – when the ‘victim’ is exposed to particularly beautiful, or large amounts of, art in a single place – e.g. Florence (Italy), which has a high concentration of classic works; the response can also occur when a person is overwhelmed by breathtaking natural beauty” (2).  Stendhal Syndrome can also cause nausea, paranoia, and even temporary psychosis.  It’s caused by concentrated art, “immense beauty (such as something in the natural world like a beautiful sunset)” (3), and “most commonly occurs in tourists who have created stress symptoms by attempting to see and do too much” (4).

            The name Stendhal Syndrome was coined in 1979 by the Italian psychiatrist Dr. Graziella Magherini who, at the time, was the chief of psychiatry at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence (5).  She noticed that an awful lot of people visiting Florence were coming down with panic attacks or temporary madness, but not really requiring any medical help.  Dr. Magherini remembered having read Stendhal’s account and coined the condition after him.

            In 1989, Dr. Magherini published La Sindroma di Stendhal, in which she documented 106 cases at her hospital in Florence between ’77 and ’86.  She broke these cases down into three different types.  Type 1 had 70 patients who had psychotic symptoms; type 2 had 31 patients with affective symptoms; type 3 had 5 patients with panic attacks (6).  Thirty-one percent of the people with type 1 had prior psychiatric history, and over half of the patients in type 2 had.  That was pretty much it; not much else has been written on the condition in academic literature.

            In 2005 one article claimed there was evidence that Dostoevsky suffered from this due to a description he gave of what happened when he viewed Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ.  In 2010 another claimed that Proust, Freud, and Jung also had it, based on descriptions they gave of similar occurrences.  Currently though, a team in Italy is trying to study tourists’ reactions in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.  If people do suffer from Stendhal Syndrome, Dr. Magherini has a clinic with beds available for people to rest and recover.

            It seems like Stendhal Syndrome is caused when people are already stressed about travel and/or have been looking forward to seeing a particular thing for a long time.  Basically, you’re just extremely overwhelmed or overcome by the beauty of what they’re seeing.  It’s not actually the place, but our expectations or exhaustion before getting to the place.  It’s most common in Italy, but it seems that Italians are immune, presumably because they live among these things.  The Japanese don’t get it either, due to their “hit-and-run, highly regimented tourism” (7).

            So, how can you prevent getting Stendhal Syndrome?  Experts advise trying not to do too much at once (again, especially in Italy) and balancing your time between art and other activities (8).  Beware though, there are other Syndromes you could still get.  There’s: Paris Syndrome, from taking in too much culture at once; Jerusalem Syndrome, from taking in too much religion/religious sites at once; and Rubens Syndrome “for erotically charged activity to break out after, or even during, viewings of Old Masters, particularly those depicting a figurative romp” (9).  The Rubens one has actually been studied too; of the 2000 people that were observed or talked to, 20% had “begun ‘an erotic adventure’ in a museum” (10) (for someone who works in museums… Um… Please don’t…).

            So that’s the weird case (and so a weird entry today) of Stendhal Syndrome.  I think it’s really neat but weird and crazy and I’m curious what other weird medical things there are like this!  When you look at the Wikipedia page for Stendhal Syndrome it also suggests Lisztomania, Paris Syndrome, and Jerusalem Syndrome; Lisztomania was just done on Stuff You Missed in History Class, but I may have to look at the other two a bit more, or see what the Liszt page might tell me to look at.  Crazy stuff!

1 – Stendhal Syndrome.

2 – Stendhal Syndrome, The Free Dictionary.

3, 5, 6 – Griffiths, Mark D., Ph.D., “Having an Art Attack:A brief look at Stendhal Syndrome,” PsychologyToday, Mar 10, 2014.

4, 8 – “What is Stendhal Syndrome?,” wiseGEEK.

7, 9, 10 – Guy, Melinda, “The Shock of the Old”, frieze, Issue 72, January-February 2003.

Gertrude Käsebier

            I chose today’s topic because her work keeps popping up for me.  Gertrude Käsebier photographed Evelyn Nesbit, who I’m fascinated by; her photos have been used on book jackets, stamps… a lot of things.  She was a portrait photographer and a co-founder of the Photo-Secession movement.  A lot of her work focused on domestic images of women.  Despite knowing all this now, I still don’t feel like I really know her.  I think I understand her art a bit better, and the changes in photography, but not really what she was doing.  Maybe writing this and rereading it will help me know her better in the future.

            Gertrude Stanton was born on May 18, 1852 in Fort Des Moines (now just Des Moines), Iowa in a log cabin.  Her parents were John W. and Gertrude Muncy Shaw Stanton, and she had a younger brother.  In 1859, John moved to Eureka Gulch and opened a sawmill hoping to make some money from the gold rush happening in Colorado; the following year the family followed.  The family moved around a lot, John trying to find gold where he could.  Eventually the family moved to Golden, the capital of the Colorado Territory; John was elected the first mayor of Golden.  The family’s new wealth and status meant they wanted bigger and better things for their children now, and so Gertrude was pushed towards music.  She resisted though, always more interested in art and pictures than anything else.

            When the Civil War broke out, the Stantons moved to Brooklyn, New York.  At the time of their move, John may have been dead already.  Some sources said that he died, and that caused the family to move; another source said that he moved with them and worked processing minerals in New York.  However it all exactly happened, the family moved to New York and Gertrude’s mother rented out rooms in their home to make money.

            From 1866 (or 1868) to 1870, Gertrude went to the Bethlehem Female Seminary (later Moravian College) in Bethlehem, PA, living with her maternal grandmother while she went to school.  She would return home to New York on occasion though, and on one of these occasions Gertrude met her future husband.  Eduard Käsebier was a German businessman, working to import shellac into the United States.  Eduard rented a room at the Stantons home on some of his trips.

            Gertrude and Eduard married on Gertrude’s twenty-second birthday, May 18, 1874.  This marriage gave Gertrude a home and family and financial stability, but not much else.  Gertrude didn’t have patience for housework and was still interested in art.  Eduard wanted a normal wife and family.  Neither person would budge and the marriage collapsed.  The couple had three children – Frederick William in 1875, Gertrude Elizabeth in 1878, and Hermine Mathilde in 1880 – but once the last child was born, the couple separated.  Gertrude once said, “If my husband has gone to Heaven, I want to go to Hell” (1).

            Despite their separation, Eduard continued to support Gertrude financially.  This support allowed Gertrude to go to art school.  Once her youngest child was grown enough, Gertrude enrolled in the Pratt Institute in 1889.  Originally she studied painting, but quickly fell in love with photography.  In 1894 she won places in two photography competitions: The Quarterly Illustrator for best photograph, winning $50, and runner up in the New York Herald’s contest.

            In 1894 Gertrude took a yearlong trip to Europe to further study art and broaden her knowledge.  She was still taking typical art photographs at this time, focusing on cityscapes and landscapes.  While she was in France, though, the weather was too bad to take pictures outside, and so Gertrude shifted to portraiture.  Also while in France, Gertrude was publishing photos and essays in French magazines.  In addition to studying in France, Gertrude studied in Germany under Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, who had also worked with Alfred Stieglitz.

            At this same time, Eduard fell ill and Gertrude returned home.  Eduard was only given one year to live, but ultimately lived another twelve.  Moving back to New York, Gertrude had to find a way to bring in an income.  She worked as an assistant to Samuel H. Lifshey, learning how to run a studio and work as a professional photographer.  In 1896 Gertrude opened her own studio in her home, moving shortly after to “the emerging upscale shopping district known as the ‘Ladies Mile’ developing rapidly along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan” (2).  This is when Gertrude’s portraits took off; she took over 150 photos of New York socialites at this time.  Her photos are reminiscent of classically painted portraits, but she always denied this comparison.

            In1896, Gertrude had her first solo show at the Boston Camera Club; this was to drum up business without being seen as commercial.  Many of her other early photographs are of friends and family and highlight the theme of motherhood.  (While Gertrude never had anything positive to say about marriage, she always showed motherhood in a positive, but realistic, light.)  Gertrude’s style became popular; she used few props and only simple backgrounds.

            Gertrude also took a number of photos of Native Americans.  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was very popular and was touring the country; on their stop in New York, Gertrude took their photographs.  Having grown up out West, Gertrude wanted to show the Native Americans as she saw them as they were, nothing romantic; her photos were completely different from those of Edward Curtis, who was known for his photos of Native Americans.

            In 1898, Gertrude entered some pieces into the Philadelphia Photographic Salon.  Out of 1200 entries, only 259 were picked; Gertrude had ten pieces in the Salon.  The following year Gertrude was one of the judges in addition to showing more pieces that year and in 1900.  In 1899, Gertrude showed The Manger.  The piece was purchased for $100, setting a record for photographic art.

In 1898, also, Gertrude reached out to Alfred Stieglitz, ostensibly “asking for his advice on photographing outdoors, even though she had already published outdoor photographs” (3). They had similar ideas about photography, and he started promoting her works.  In 1899, he printed five of her pieces in his journal, Camera Notes, saying she was “beyond dispute, the leading portrait photographer in the country” (4).  In 1899 Gertrude was also praised in Everybody’s Magazine, “placing her at the top of both art photography and magazine photography” (5).

Gertrude began to be known for photographs of famous people.  Between 1900 and 1902, ten of her portraits of famous people were shown in World’s Work, including Mark Twain, Arthur Twining Hadley (president of Yale), Booker T. Washington, and Jacob Riis (6).  Her photos were also being used alongside fiction as illustrations.  Unlike Jacob Riis, and fellow early female photographer Alice Austen, Gertrude Käsebier was not interested in photographing the lower classes.

Gertrude was one of the first two women elected to join the Linked Ring in England (the other being Anne Brigman).  In 1901, Gertrude travelled to Paris with Edward Steichen and photographed sculptor Auguste Rodin.  Also in 1901, in Ladies’ Home Journal, Frances Benjamin Johnson included Gertrude in a piece on “The Foremost Women Photographers of America” (7).

Gertrude’s assent in the art photography world happened very quickly.  In just over three years she had reached the “highest level of accomplishment and acclaim in art photography in the United States” (8).  In her art, Gertrude was trying to be symbolic, yet intimate.  To give her photos this dual purpose, she would rework her photos to change the appearance.  Originally Gertrude worked with platinum prints, but moved to gum-bichromate in 1901, allowing her to create a different look.

In 1902, Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession group, including Gertrude, Clarence H. White, and Edward Steichen as founding members.  This group was an offshoot of Pictorialism.  Pictorialism is all about manipulating the image and elevating photography to an art form.  These photographers would use different focus types, print in something other than black and white, and alter their prints with brushstrokes or other surface manipulations (9).  Photo-Secessionists were artists aligned with Stieglitz’s point of view.  Stieglitz dedicated the first issue of his second journal, Camera Work, to Gertrude’s pieces.

By 1908, Gertrude’s relationship with Stieglitz was over, having been strained for years.  In 1906, she had joined the Professional Photographers of New York which was more about selling photographs.  Gertrude had to make money to support her family due to her husband’s continuing illness, and Stieglitz was opposed to commercial art.  Additionally, Gertrude also cofounded the Women’s Federation of the Photographers of America with Clarence H. White, another group Stieglitz was opposed to.  Gertrude officially resigned from the Photo-Secession in 1912.

In December 1909, Eduard finally died and was followed shortly by Gertrude’s mother in August 1910.  This began a decline in Gertrude’s output, though she still focused on portraiture.  In 1914 she opened a new studio in New York and in 1916 became one of the founding members of the Pictorial Photographers of America.  In 1925, with failing eyesight and hearing, Gertrude’s daughter Hermine joined Gertrude’s business; in 1929, though, Gertrude shut her studio.  That same year, there was a retrospective of Gertrude’s work at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.  Gertrude Käsebier died on October 13, 1934 in Hermine’s home.

In 1979 Gertrude was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.  In the late twentieth century there was renewed interest in Gertrude’s works.  In 1979 the Delaware Art Museum put on an exhibition of her work; in 1992 the Museum of Modern Art had an exhibition, which eventually travelled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  In 2002, Gertrude’s best-known work, Blessed Art Thou Among Women (1899), was put on a US postage stamp.

Gertrude Käsebier was not only “one of the first American women to have a successful career as a photographer, but she was one of the first photographers anywhere to focus on the family” (10).  Her work still looks fresh, to me, and just so beautiful and atmospheric.

1 – Lori Oden, “Gertrude Kasebier,” International Photography Hall of Fame.

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 – Beverly W. Brannan, “Gertrude Käsebier,” Prints & Photographs Reading Room, The Library of Congress, 2013.

9, 10 – Steve Meltzer, "The Nearly Forgotten Mother of ModernAmerican Photography, Gertrude Käsebier,” Imaging Resource, May 12, 2012. 

Agatha Christie

            This post came a bit last minute (so it should be shorter at least!).  I was researching someone else (they’ll be up next week), and then realized that it was almost the birthday of the other person I’d considered for this week, as in, this person would have turned 125 tomorrow.  So, I changed my plan and rushed to finish this.  So Happy Day-Early Birthday to Agatha Christie, one of my favorites.

           Agatha Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in Torquay, Devon, England on September 15, 1890.  Her family was comfortably middle class, and her father, an American, homeschooled Agatha; her mother, Clara, didn’t want Agatha to learn to read until she was eight.  Agatha was the only child in the house (she had two older siblings, but “was a much loved ‘after thought’” (1)) and was bored, so she taught herself to read by age five.

            Agatha read children’s stories that were popular at the time, including E. Nesbit and Louisa May Alcott, but also read poetry and “thrillers from America” (2).  When Agatha was five, her family spent some time in France; this is when Agatha first learned French.  When Agatha was eleven, her father died after a number of heart attacks.

            When Agatha was eighteen, she began writing short stories; some of these would be published in the 1930s after serious revisions.  Two years later, Agatha traveled with her mother to Cairo for her mother’s health.  They stayed for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel.  During this period Agatha went to house parties galore and had a number of marriage proposals, none of which she accepted.

            In 1912, Agatha met Archie Christie, an aviator with the Royal Flying Corps.  They had a whirlwind romance, and wanted to marry, but neither had the money to make it possible.  When World War One broke out, Archie went to serve in France and Agatha worked at the Voluntary Aid Department at the Red Cross Hospital in Torquay.  They decided not to put off marrying any longer, and married on Christmas Eve of 1914.  Archie returned to France on the 27^th.

            Throughout the war, Agatha and Archie didn’t see much of each other.  In January 1918, though, Archie was posted to the War Office in London, and so they were finally together again; this is when “Agatha felt her married life truly began” (3).

            Throughout the war, Agatha had been writing.  She started in earnest on a bet from her sister “that she couldn’t write a good detective story” (4), as well as to relieve some of the monotony at work.  Agatha would first develop her plot and then came up with her characters.  At this time she was working at the Hospital Dispensary.  She had had to take and pass a test from the Society of Apothecaries in order to get that position.  This gave her the background she needed when she would use poisons in her writing.  Her use of poison in her first book “was so well described that when the book was eventually published Agatha received an unprecedented honour for a writer of fiction – a review in the Pharmaceutical Journal” (5).

            This first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was published in 1919.  This was a big year for Agatha; in addition to the book’s publication, she and Archie moved to London, and their daughter Rosalind was born.  The publication of Styles came after having sent it to four other publishers.  This publisher, John Lane of Bodley Head, suggested a couple of changes to the book, including moving the resolution of the story from a courtroom to the, now famous, library.

            The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first book to feature Hercule Poirot, a Belgian former policeman.  During World War One, a lot of Belgian refugees came to England; this is why Agatha Christie made Poirot a Belgian refugee.

            After the war, Agatha continued writing.  Tommy and Tuppence Beresford and Miss Jane Marple soon followed Hercule Poirot.  Agatha kept writing, even while she was travelling with Archie, “promoting the Empire Exhibition of 1924” (6).  Agatha received news that The Secret Adversary (her second book, the first Tommy and Tuppence) would be published while she was in Cape Town.  (While in Cape Town, also, Agatha became the first British woman to surf standing up.)

            Agatha used inspiration from her travels with Archie, as well as people she knew.  For her fourth book, The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha based Sir Eustace Padlar on Archie’s boss.  For publication of this book, Agatha switched from Bodley Head to William Collins and Sons (now HarperColins).

            Around this time, Agatha and Archie returned to England to their daughter.  They named their new home in the suburbs of London, Styles, after her first book.  Shortly after this, Agatha’s life hit a hard spot.  Agatha’s mother died, leaving Agatha to empty out the family home in Torquay.  She was working on a novel at this point, but the strain of her mother’s death also strained her writing.

            At this same time, 1926, Archie fell in love with Nancy Neale.  Archie golfed, Nancy golfed, Agatha did not.  Agatha found out about Archie’s relationship with Nancy.  In early December of that year, Agatha left Rosalind with the maids at home and left.  Her car was found several miles away, and a nationwide search took place.  Finally she was found to have travelled from Kings Cross to Harrogate to the Harrogate Spa Hotel.  Agatha was staying at the hotel as Theresa Neale, from South Africa.  Luckily the staff at the hotel had recognized her and had called the police.  Agatha didn’t recognize Archie, and didn’t know who she was, when he came to get her; she had amnesia and possibly a concussion.  Agatha never spoke of this time with anyone.

            After her disappearance, Agatha separated from Archie.  She moved to London with Rosalind and with her secretary, Carlo.  She underwent psychological treatments at this time.  Agatha was struggling financially, and was having trouble writing.  Her brother-in-law suggested collecting some previously written Poirot short stories and publishing them; these short stories were published as The Big Four.

            In 1928, Agatha and Archie’s divorce was finalized, and Agatha went to the Canary Islands with Rosalind.  She finally finished The Mystery of the Blue Train, the story she had been struggling with after her mother’s death.  In late 1928, Giant’s Beard was published; this was her first book as Mary Westmacott.  Agatha would write six romances as Mary Westmacott (in addition to the sixty-six novels and fourteen collections of short stories as herself).

            In the autumn of 1928, Agatha finally travelled on the Orient Express, something she had always wanted to do.  She also travelled to Baghdad and to the archeological site at Ur, making friends with the Woolleys, the people who ran the site.  The following year, Agatha came back to the dig and met 25-year-old Max Mallowan, and archeologist in training.  Max showed Agatha around the site and “each found the other’s company relaxing” (7).

            Max and Agatha fell in love, their relationship “forged by travel” (8).  Max proposed to Agatha on the last night of his trip to Ashfield, her family home.  They were married on September 11, 1930.  Max and Agatha spent their summers at Ashfield, springs on archeological digs, and the rest of the year in London or at their home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

            Throughout most of her marriage to Max, Agatha was writing two or three books a year.  When they were on Max’s digs, she would write “a chapter or two during quiet mornings and helped out on site in the afternoon” (9).  Many of Agatha’s Middle Eastern themed or placed books came out of this period.

            In 1938, Agatha and Max bought Greenway House on the River Dart to replace Ashfield.  During World War Two, though, the home was taken over by Americans.  Agatha also worried they’d have to sell Greenway House in order to pay taxes.  During the war, Max was in Cairo, using his knowledge of languages to assist the war effort; Agatha stayed in London, doing much as she did during the First World War, volunteering at the dispensary at University College Hospital, and writing.  Agatha wrote N or M? as a patriotic gesture at this time, but the publication of the book was delayed so it didn’t quite have the effect she’d have liked.

            With Max gone, and there being so much less to do, Agatha’s output during the Second World War was prolific.  Between 1939 and 1945, Agatha published twelve books under both her name and as Mary Westmacott.  In 1946, her cover as Westmacott was blown and she stopped using that name; she had “enjoyed the freedom to write without the pressure of being Agatha Christie” (10).

            After the war, Agatha’s output slowed.  She had Max back, and the tax implications of her writing were just too much.  Throughout the rest of the 40s and 50s, she worked on theatrical productions, and less on books. (Though she would continue to publish throughout the rest of her life, she wasn’t putting out multiple books a year anymore, and some years would publish nothing.)

            One of her theatrical contributions was The Mousetrap.  Premiering in the West End on November 25, 1952, The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running play, never having ceased performance since then.  It has been performed over 25,000 times.

           Agatha’s last public appearance was at the premiere for the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express, with Albert Finney.  Agatha liked the film but thought Poirot’s mustaches “weren’t luxurious enough” (11).

            Agatha Christie Mallowan died on January 12, 1976.  She is buried at St. Mary’s, Cholsey, near Wallingford.

            Agatha Christie holds a number of records for her works.  As mentioned, The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running play.  She’s also in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling novelist of all time, with over two billion copies of her books in print.  She is the world’s third most-published author, behind only Shakespeare and the Bible.  She is the most translated individual, having been translated into 103 languages.  And And Then There Were None (first published in 1939) is the best selling mystery novel in the world, and one of the best selling books ever, with 100 million sales.

            That’s Agatha Christie, quick and not super in depth, but hopefully fun.  I love Agatha Christie, I love Poirot (David Suchet forever!) and Miss Marple.  I wanted to do something about her for her 125^th birthday, and so many other events in her life happened in September, I thought why not.  I’ll probably wind up rereading some Agatha Christie tomorrow, or maybe finally read The Mysterious Affair at Styles (surprisingly hard to track down…).  Happy early birthday, Agatha!

1, 2, 3 - Agatha Christie, Childhood

4, 5, 6 - Agatha Christie, Poirot is Born

7, 8, 9 - Agatha Christie, A New Start

10, 11 - Agatha Christie, Autumn

Gertrude Ederle's Channel Swim

            Last week, we learned about Gertrude Ederle’s early life, her Olympic achievements, and her first attempt to swim the English Channel.  This time, her second attempt and the rest of her life and legacy.

            So, for her second attempt, Ederle decided not to have the WSA sponsor her again, instead coming up with the $9,000 herself.  She secured contracts with both the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune.  These papers sponsored her in return for having the first interviews with her upon her success.

            In 1926, when Ederle made her second attempt, many other women were attempting to swim the Channel too.  In addition to Ederle, Lillian Cannon, Clarabelle Barrett, and Amelia Gade Corson tried.  Ederle said her “resolve was strengthened by the fact that competitors were trying to do the same thing” (1).  Cannon was sponsored by the Baltimore Post; the Post tried to create a rivalry between Cannon and Ederle, since both women were training in France at the same time.

On August 6, 1926, Ederle began her trip from Cape Gris-Nez, near Calais in France.  Ederle was outfitted with a red two piece bathing suit that she had created with her sister, a red diving cap, and yellow goggles.  Burgess had used motorcycle goggles in 1911to help protect his eyes from the salt water; Ederle did the same, edging hers in paraffin wax to make them more watertight for her eyes.  Ederle also coated herself in a combination of olive oil, lanolin, and Vasoline to help insulate her from the cold water, and from possible jellyfish stings.

Ederle took off from Cape Gris-Nez at 7:08 in the morning.  The weather started out alright, but grew increasingly rough.  Around the six hour mark, the cross currents were incredibly dangerous.  At hour twelve she was just exhausted and with the bad weather, Burgess asked her if she wanted to stop. “What for?” was her response.

Ederle’s attempt was followed by two boats.  The main tug boat had her father and her sister, Meg, on it, as well as a reporter from the New York Daily News.  The reporter wouldn’t let other reporters on the boat, and so other reporters hired a second tug so they could follow.  At a few points in the crossing, the second tug came in very close to Ederle, nearly hurting her chances for success.  This second tug also “led to accusations in the British press that the two tugs had in fact sheltered Edele from the bad weather and thus made her swim ‘easier’” (2).

Ederle said that she was kept motivated “by several encouraging telegrams that her mother had sent from New York, and which her supporters read to her during the swim” (3).  She sang “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” to herself, to the beat of her stroke.  Anything she could do to push herself she did.  She paused every so often for food, “beef broth and bits of cold chicken – extended to her from the accompanying boat on a long pole” (4).

After fourteen hours, thirty-one (or thirty-four) minutes, Ederle came ashore in Kingsdown, Kent, near Dover.  Ederle’s trip had been about thrity-five miles due to the rough weather; the crossing is actually only a twenty-one mile trip.  (The trip from France to England is considered a rougher, more dangerous trip than the trip from England to France.)   The first person Ederle met in England was a British immigration officer, asking for her passport. 

Ederle’s record for swimming the English Channel stood until 1950, when Florence Chadwick did it in thirteen hours, twenty minutes.  (Ederle never considered her record beaten though, since she had swum so much farther due to the rough weather.)  Of the other women who were also trying the swim in 1926, Barrett and Cannon did not succeed.  Corson did succeed three weeks after Ederle, but was fifty minutes slower.

In Kingsdown, there were “screaming spectators, flares, and searchlights … waiting for her” (5).  Ederle’s father had bet Lloyd’s of London that his daughter would succeed, making $175,000 on the bet.  On return to New York he handed out free frankfurters in his neighborhood to celebrate.  When Ederle returned to New York, she was greeted by massive crowds at the dock and in all the streets.  She was given a ticker-tape parade and over two million people lined the streets.  New York’s Mayor Jimmy Walker congratulated her at City Hall.  She was invited to the White House to meet President Coolidge, who called her “America’s Best Girl”.

Ederle had at least two songs written for her: “Tell Me, Trudy, Who’s Going to Be the Lucky One?” and “Trudy” by Charles Tobias and Al Sherman (crowds always called her Trudy, though her family called her Gertie).  She had a dance step named for her.  She was nicknamed “Queen of the Waves”.  In New York she was “flooded with book, movie, and stage offers, as well as proposals for marriage” (6).  Ederle played herself in the movie Swim Girl, Swim with Bebe Daniels.  She toured the vaudeville circuit too.

By 1928, though, all of this had drained her health and she suffered a nervous breakdown.  Her manager also didn’t know how to market her after her initial fame, so between that and the onset of the Great Depression, she didn’t wind up making much money, despite all her fame.  She had also never finished school, and was only interested in swimming, and so had a rough transition to adulthood.

In 1933 Ederle fell down the steps in her apartments building, twisting her spine.  She was bedridden, in a cast for four to five years.  She had very limited mobility and was in near constant pain.  She never competed again, but in 1939, at the New York World’s Fair, she did perform in Billy Rose’s Aquacade.

Ederle did have a lasting impact on women in sports though.  When she was coming up, women were slowly being able to swim and compete.  With her successful swimming of the Channel, people could see just what women were capable of.

Ederle had suffered from the measles as a child, and had hearing problems because of it.  She had been warned against swimming affecting her hearing, but just wanted to swim.  Her hearing was permanently damaged during her Channel cross, and by the 1940s she was practically deaf.  While she never learned sign language, she managed to teach swimming to children at the Lexington School for the Deaf.

During World War II, Ederle worked at LaGuardia checking flight instruments.  She quit this job after the war; she could have continued the work if she had wanted to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Despite all the proposals she got when she returned to New York, Ederle never married.  She had one serious proposal, but when she pointed out the difficulties they would have “because of the social limitations caused by her deafness” (7), he left.  She did not want to go through that again, and so never put herself in that position again.  Instead, she lived with a few female friends in Queens, before eventually moving to a nursing home in New Jersey.

In 1965, Ederle was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an “Honor Swimmer.”  In 1980 she was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.  Her one ambition in life had been to swim the Channel and she did it.  Over the years, as anniversaries of her swim would come up, she would be interviewed for the papers.  She always granted the interviews, but never wanted to be made pitiable.  “I have no complaints … I am comfortable and satisfied.  I am not a person who reaches for the moon as long as I have the stars” (8).

Gertrude Ederle died on November 30, 2003 in Wyckoff, New Jersey at age 98.  She’s interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Every year there is an annual swim, following her 1925 route from Battery Park to Sandy Hook called the Ederle Swim.  In the Upper West Side Manhattan, near where she grew up, there is the Gertrude Ederle Recreation Center.  In 2010, there was a radio play by Anita Sullivan about Ederle, based on Gavin Mortimer’s 2008 book The Great Swim.  So Ederle lives on (even through a yarn colorway).  You can watch a newsreel of her swim on YouTube.

1, 3, 5, 6 - Gertrude Ederle Facts, YourDictionary.

2 - Gertrude Ederle.

4, 7 - Ann T. Keene, “Gertrude Ederle,” American National Biography Online.

8 - Richard Severo, “Gertrude Ederle, the First Woman toSwim Across the English Channel, Dies at 98,” The New York Times, December 1, 2003.

Happy birthday, Liliuokalani!