Episode 254: Gertrude Ederle

Gertrude, circa 1922 in her WSA sweater via Library of Congress

They said it couldn’t be done; that the deck, and the odds, were stacked against her, but Trudy Ederle listened only to her heart during her record-breaking swim across the English Channel. She was the first woman to accomplish this feat, and her record would hold for another 24 years, but there was a lot more to her life than one phenomenal swim.

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