WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Annette Kellerman 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.320 Happy Saturday. A viral post has been floating around social 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:09.680 media this summer on a net Kellerman and the first 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.800 women's swimwear. She has always been a favorite of mine, 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.960 although with some pretty big caveats that should become obvious 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.119 over the course of this episode. In this episode, we 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.520 mentioned that Kellerman donated all her costumes to the Sydney 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:26.880 Opera House, and then we'd put a link to where 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.960 you can see them in our show notes. We don't 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:31.840 have show notes in quite the same way as we 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.360 did when we first recorded this episode, but we will 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.479 include that link as part of the description in today's 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.000 episode so folks can get it from our website or 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:44.560 their podcast app. This episode originally came out June fifth, 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:51.400 twenty seventeen. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:59.760 a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.240 Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:07.559 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. So summer's coming, at least 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.480 in theory. Sure, sure, I think summer has definitely arrived 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.760 where you are, which is Atlanta. Yeah, I mean, I 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.280 guess technically it's still cooler than it usually would be 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:19.160 this time of year. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.800 Yeah, it is. Not warm at all. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.720 It's fifty seven degrees right now. We're recording this on 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.320 May thirtieth. Yeah, like I think our high today might 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.760 be eighty, which sounds hot to some people, but for 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:32.880 Atlanta at the end of May, that's really not. 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:34.160 Yeah. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.080 Yeah, it's been a We've had an unseasonably cool May 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.160 up here in New England anyway, though at least in theory, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.800 summer is either on the way or here for most 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:48.200 but not all, of our listeners. So it seems like 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.840 a good time to talk about swimming. We yes, specifically, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.760 we are talking about Annette Kellerman, who gets a lot 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.720 of the credit for developing the woman's one piece bathing 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.160 suit and then for making it socially appropriate for women 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.240 in a lot of the English speaking world to put 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.280 on an outfit that you could actually swim in without 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.560 drowning and then go out in public that way. And 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.400 perhaps kind of ironically, she was Australian, where it is 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:20.840 definitely not coming on summer. So Australians, we have some 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:25.920 Australian history today that is seasonally incongruous for where you 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.480 actually live. Yeah, unless you happen to be somebody who's 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:31.639 downloading it late in the game, in which case, sure, 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:36.440 hooray summer for you as well. Annette Kellerman was born 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.520 in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. She was coy about 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.560 her birth date, and it's variously cited as July fifth 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.800 or sixth of eighteen eighty six, eighteen eighty seven, or 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.799 eighteen eighty eight. The sixth is the most frequently cited date. 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.480 Her father, Frederick, was a violinist born in Australia, and 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.400 her mother, Alice, was a pianist and a music teacher 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.679 who was originally from France. When she was young and 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.600 had to wear braces on her legs because of persistent weakness, 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.000 and not only were these braces painful to wear, but 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:08.840 she also found them embarrassing. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.040 The cause is unclear. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.919 A few sources site rickets or polio, and later on 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.320 in her life she speculated that it might have been 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.720 a calcium deficiency according to her own account. Actual doctors 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.400 at the time said that it was because she had 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:26.800 been allowed to learn to walk too early, or that 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.360 she had chalk in her bones. Neither of those are 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.320 real things would have caused her to need leg braces, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.800 so totally unclear, but the braces were a real part 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:39.520 of her life, so she get when you go to 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.680 cartoon doctors, like chalk in your bones sounds like such 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.160 a cartoon diagnosed with this, and chalk bones is a 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.880 nickname for like one, yeah, congenital bone condition, but it 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.040 has nothing to do with what she was experiencing. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.400 It's a totally different set of symptoms, so very weird. 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.280 Yeah, whatever the cause of her disability, eventually her father 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.200 visited a doctor who recommended swimming lessons, and at first 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.640 Annette was really terrified of this plan, possibly because it 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.200 meant exposing her legs to people, which she did not 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.240 want to do because they were visibly undeveloped, and she 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.359 begged not to have to go. But her parents and 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.239 the doctor were all certain that swimming would really help, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:22.400 so she and her brothers were taken to Frederick Cavell's 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.040 baths so they could learn to swim. And the Cavils 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.279 were actually a whole family of swimmers. They're in the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.640 International Swimming Hall of Fame for their combined contributions to 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.520 the sport. It took a net a lot longer to 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.800 get the hang of swimming than it took her brothers. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.120 They were both able to swim on their own after 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.719 a handful of lessons, but it took a net close 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.279 to twenty But once she knew how to do it, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.600 as predicted, it really did help her build her strength 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.080 up in her legs, and with the water supporting her, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.039 she could move around without having to wear the braces. 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.000 Annette would later describe her gradual improvement through swimming as 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.440 a process of intense joy. By the time she reached 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.840 the age of thirteen, her muscle development was more or 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.839 less typical for a child her age, although she was 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.520 susceptible to muscle strains and had to wear very tightly laced. 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:11.880 Boots until she was eighteen. 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.719 A lot of the swimming strokes that are recognized and 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.880 used competitively today were still new or in the process 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.120 of being developed and refined, so what Annette learned at 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.680 first was basically the breast stroke, and that was the 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.839 stroke that she used mostly when she was exercising at first. 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.200 At about the age of fifteen, she started branching out 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.400 into learning other strokes, putting dedicated effort into practicing them 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.960 and getting better at them, and soon she told her 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.520 parents that she wanted to start competing in swimming. Her 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.840 first swimming race was a local event, and she won it. 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.719 Annette's father had been incredulous when she said she wanted 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.640 to enter a swimming race. He had thought of swimming 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.520 as something she was doing because of her disability, not 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.599 as something she would seriously pursue for her own sake. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.360 But once she had that first win under her belt, 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.640 he was in instrumental in her progress as a competitive swimmer, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.960 essentially becoming both her trainer and her coach. As soon 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:11.120 as she started seriously competing, Annette started winning races and 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.160 setting records. In nineteen oh two, at the age of 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.560 about sixteen, she won a one hundred yard championship for 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.839 New South Wales and also set a world record for 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.400 swimming a mile with a time of thirty two minutes 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.760 and twenty nine seconds. That same year, she started participating 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.520 in long distance swimming races and public diving demonstrations. Her 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.279 time in the water wasn't only about competition, though, She 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:41.520 started doing mermaid shows in Australian aquariums along with other 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.440 aquatic performances while she was still in her teens. Although 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.040 she was winning races and making a name for herself 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.000 as a competitive swimmer, she wasn't really able to earn 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.040 an income from doing so, so Annette and her father 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.560 moved to England with the hope of finding more lucrative 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.919 opportunities to compete and perform. Once they arrived in England, 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.400 they had a really hard time getting started. Although Annette 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.040 already held multiple records in swimming, they didn't know anyone, 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.000 and Annette didn't have a local reputation to try to 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.800 build on, So her father hatched a plan to drum 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.640 up some publicity. She would swim twenty six miles, which 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.440 was forty two kilometers down the Thames from Putney to Blackwall. 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.120 In nineteen oh five, a net at about age eighteen, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.680 became the first woman to make this swim. Although it 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.080 did indeed bring in a lot of media attention, the 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.200 swim itself was terrible. The Thames was filthy, and Annette 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.920 later said she felt like she'd swallowed big mouthfuls of 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.160 oil from the surface of the river. She'd also had 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.400 to dodge a lot of flotsam, garbage, tugboats and barges 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:49.160 along the way. But afterward, a sports editor from the 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.800 Daily Mirror approached her with another idea. The Daily Mirror 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.840 was the first paper in the UK to use photographs 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.400 rather than illustrations, and the editor thought that articles on 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.960 a net complete with photographs of her in the scandalous 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.360 swimwear that we're going to talk about a little bit 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.360 more later. He thought that would sell a lot of papers, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.600 so we offered to back her an attempt in an 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.160 attempt to swim across the English Channel, along with paying 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:19.000 for and writing about swims along the coast to train 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.720 for it. This entire enterprise was wildly successful in almost 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.400 every way. Annette's training swims down the coast drew huge crowds, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.000 and the articles and their corresponding photos sold lots of papers. 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.280 She swam an average of forty five miles or seventy 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.679 two kilometers per week, increasing the distance of each swim 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.319 until she'd done the twenty four mile stretch from Dover 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.640 to Ramsgate. At that point she thought she was ready 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.360 to try to conquer the Channel. Although that's a slightly 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.599 shorter distance than her swim down the Thames, swimming in 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.120 the English Channel is far more difficult due to the 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.600 very cold water, the waves and the tides. She made 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.600 her first attempts to swim across the English Channel along 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.880 with six men on August twenty fourth of nineteen oh five. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.120 They all started their swim at about three in the morning, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.080 all from different points along the coast, based on where 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.200 they thought the currents and the tides would be the 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.280 most advantageous. Each swimmer was accompanied by a steam tug 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.040 and a row boat in case they fell into some 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.920 distress along the way, and then periodically hot chocolate or 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.040 food could be handed down to the swimmers from these 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.920 boats to keep their energy up. An advertiser had given 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.320 a net chocolate to eat along the way, but the 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.040 combination of chocolate and the choppy water really made her seasick. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.960 The further she went, the bigger her payday would be. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.000 Those so she kept herself going through that seasickness by 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.599 thinking the longer you stick, the more you get. She 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:46.800 stuck it out for about six and a half hours, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.240 and she was paid thirty pounds. This was the first 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.960 of Kellerman's three attempts to swing that swim the English Channel, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.560 and as with her swim down the Thames, she was 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.040 the first woman to make the attempt. The closest it 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.280 came in these three attempts to actually crossing was about. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.079 Three quarters of the way, which took ten and a 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:05.880 half hours. 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.640 Later, Kellerman would say she thought she had the endurance 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.800 to swim the Channel, but not the raw strength. In 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.200 her nineteen eighteen book How to Swim, she wrote that 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.680 she didn't think a woman would ever successfully swim the 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.880 English Channel. She was proven wrong in nineteen twenty six 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.440 when Gertrude utterly crossed in fourteen hours thirty nine minutes, 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.960 not only swimming the channel but beating the previous record 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.520 time by more than two hours. Today there are lots 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.959 of women swim across the English Channel, including swimming at 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.760 three consecutive times, like swimming it across one way and 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.640 then going back and then going back across again, which 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:48.679 is astounding to me. So in Kellerman's first attempt to 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.960 swim across the English Channel, the male swimmers who were 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.920 swimming that night were allowed to be nude, but she 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.520 had to wear a swimsuit that chafed her skin just terribly. 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.480 And this brings us to her efforts to make suitable 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.680 swimwear for women, which we will talk about more after 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:15.000 a sponsor break. That swim down the Thames and the 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.680 attempts to cross the English Channel were not a net 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.520 Kellerman's only long distance races in the nineteen hundreds. Before 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.480 leaving Australia, she had taken multiple long distance swims down 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.160 the Yarra River, including becoming the first woman to complete 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.120 a ten mile stretch. In nineteen oh five, she participated 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.360 in a race down the Seine where she tied for 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.440 third with Thomas William Burgess, and her account of this 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.880 race and how to swim, she wrote that well, meeting 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.720 spectators kept calling out that she was almost there and 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.880 had just two bridges more, and when she realized she 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.720 was not almost there, and she became just really discouraged 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.520 because she had worn herself out doing what she thought 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.520 was her final push to the finish line. So when 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.560 Burgess caught up to her and saw that she was 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.360 crying and a very lovely show of sporting behavior, he 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:07.440 stayed with her and encouraged her for the rest of 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:09.040 the race of the race, and that is how they 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.680 came to tie. In June of nineteen oh six, Kellerman 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.760 also won a twenty two mile or thirty six kilometer 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:19.720 race down the Danube. I think anyone also who has 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.520 ever run a race knows the ire of please don't 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.840 tell me if you're almost there, when you're not, When 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:26.160 you're not. 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:27.520 Now I knew. 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:29.200 It was a little bit unclear to me whether these 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.800 were the people in the guideboat or the people who 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.640 were just spectators who were saying this. But like she 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:37.760 they got her a couple times, and then in like 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.079 time number three of them being like, you're almost there, 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.679 she was like, no, I'm not well right, And it's 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.680 almost always well intentioned, like if you But let this 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.559 be a note if you are ever spectating a sporting event, 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.880 please don't fib to the participants because it does more 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.120 to harm their head game than help. Yeah. Uh. And 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.480 in most of these events, Kellerman was one of very 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.400 few women, and sometimes he was the only woman, and 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.280 she typically swam them wearing a swimsuit that was actually 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.320 made for men, so. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.319 This was not unheard of in Australia. At this point. 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.160 Swimming was already a more established sport in Australia than 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.640 it was in the United Kingdom or the United States, 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.120 but it was astonishing in a lot of the rest 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.119 of the English speaking world, where water was for bathing, 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.000 not for swimming. Bathing meant getting into the water a 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.760 little way, and you might wait or play or maybe 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.480 float a little out there, but you didn't really swim, 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.840 and a lot of people didn't even know how to swim. 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.760 The idea of a man made swimming pool was also 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.400 still quite recent at this point, like there had not 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:49.600 even been one built for the Olympics yet. So like 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.000 bathing was a thing that happened at a beach, whether 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.520 it was like a lakeside beach or a seashore beach, 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.560 it did not really happen in a pool. And even 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.200 if you wanted to swim, if you were a woman 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.120 around the turn of the twentieth century, your bathing attire 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.640 was not something you could actually swim in. The standard 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.679 bathing costume for women was essentially a dress with a 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.200 length that ranged within a couple of inches above or 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.520 below the knee. It had a blousey top and puffy, 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:21.160 usually short sleeves, sometimes with the sailor's collar. It was cinched, 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.200 belted or ribboned at the waist and worn with stockings 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.880 and bathing slippers or sometimes even bathing boots that went 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.480 all the way up the calves, and many women wore 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:35.800 their bathing clothes with corsets and other underpinnings. Here is 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.920 what Annette Kellerman had to say about these outfits. Quote 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.600 there is no more reason why you should wear those 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:48.400 awful water overcoats, those awkward, unnecessary, lumpy quote bathing suits 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.240 than there is that you should wear lead chains. Heavy 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.840 bathing suits have caused more deaths by drowning than cramps. 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.800 I am certain there isn't a single reason under the 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:03.320 sun why everybody should not wear lightweight suits. Anyone who 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.400 persuades you to wear the heavy, skirty kind is endangering 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:12.960 your life. Just thinking about wearing tights into the water 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.000 is a horrifying prospect to me. 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:18.920 Oh, I don't know why. It just kind of grosses 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:19.320 me out. 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.360 For competitive women swimmers, there was a grudging exception to 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.800 the standard of dress. They could wear a men's bathing suit, 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.440 which was more like a T shirt and shorts, sometimes 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.920 constructed all as one piece. But this also starts a 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.080 whole chicken and egg situation. Women weren't supposed to be 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.920 seen in attired that they could actually swim in, which 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.200 created a huge barrier for entry for the sport of swimming. Yeah, 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.240 I people were like, well, I guess you can wear 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.880 a men's suit for this race. That left the question of, 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:52.680 like all the training you would need to do to 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.560 be able to compete in the race in the first place. 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.960 Was this whole social standard of what was acceptable for 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.240 women to wear that led Kellerman to invent a new swimsuit. 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.960 In nineteen oh five, she was scheduled for a swimming 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.640 performance at London's Bath Club and some of the royal 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.120 family was to be in attendance. The men's bathing suit 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.080 that she had been wearing was determined to be inappropriate 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.120 because it was too revealing. So Kellerman bought a pair 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.680 of black stockings and she sewed them to the legs 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.000 of her men's bathing suit, creating what was effectively a 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.880 one piece garment that covered her from her shoulders to 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.680 her feet. From there, she began tweaking and refining this 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.680 original design, eventually developing a one piece, form fitting garment 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.400 without sleeves. The lengths of the legs varied from full 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.760 length and stalking like to stopping at the thigh. Although 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.960 this would be considered pretty modest swimwear by a lot 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.080 of today's standards, it was not at all modest by 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.640 the standards of the day. Like we said before, the 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.960 first break. The very idea of a woman in public 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.240 and such a garment was enough to sell newspapers. It's 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.200 widely that in nineteen oh seven Kellerman was arrested for 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.879 indecency on Revere Beach in Massachusetts while wearing one of 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.560 these swimsuits. Although there's no arrest in the log books, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.600 it's a story that came up again and again and 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.920 again during her own lifetime, including from her own mouth, like, 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.600 I don't think she made this up, but people have 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.439 noted that, like they can't find a document that actually 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.320 details the arrest. In spite of heavy resistance to the 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.120 idea of women being out in public so relatively unclothed, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.520 Kellerman persisted. She launched her own line of women's swimwear, 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.439 some of which came with a modesty panel, which was 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.919 a close fitting skirt that went from waste to knee, 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.879 covering the thighs but bringing along far less fabric and 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.840 weight than the previous era of swimsuits. She became so 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.440 closely associated to this type of swimwear that soon people 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.560 were calling anything that looked like it and Annette Kellerman 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.399 or just a Kellerman. Although it was a name she 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.119 trademarked and went to court to defend when she needed to, 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.880 and at some beaches, Kellerman type suits were actually banned. 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.280 As Kellerman became more famous and her swimsuits became more 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.000 widely adopted, it gradually became more acceptable for women to 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.480 be seen in them and for women to participate in 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.800 the sport of swimming, and compounding that, for swimming in 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.840 general to be seen as a recreational activity. Some of 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.960 this was part of an overall growth in the popularity 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.800 of swimming, but it wasn't just happenstance. Kellerman was an 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.200 active advocate for women to learn to swim and for 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.679 swimming to be seen as an acceptable form of exercise, recreation, 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.919 and competition for women. She wrote quote, I am not 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:43.720 trying to shut men out of swimming. 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:45.560 There is enough water in the world for. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.359 All of us. But as men can indulge in so 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.359 many other sports where women can make a poor showing 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.879 or cannot compete at all, swimming may well be called 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.760 the women's sport. But unfortunately this progress did not apply 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:04.080 to all women. Even though Kellerman herself wrote things like quote, 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.080 there is nothing more democratic than swimming and a clean, cool, 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.600 beautiful cheap thing we all from cats to kings, can enjoy. 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.720 Swimming was not actually accessible to everyone. In the United States, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.960 public beaches and as they were built, public swimming pools 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.040 were often racially segregated, and the Indigenous population was barred 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.919 from many public swimming areas in Australia, So while Kellerman 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.320 was a staunch advocate for making swimming accessible to women, 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.880 that was really most applicable to white women. To add 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.399 another layer to all of this, a lot of the 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.159 swimming strokes that she learned as a child and then 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.600 helped to popularize and as an adult were either patterned 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:50.119 after or directly taught to white swimmers by Indigenous Australians 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.639 and Indigenous people from elsewhere in the Pacific. So like 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.320 a lot of the art and skill of swimming drew 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.240 from indigenous knowledge, but Indigenous people were excluded from a 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.560 lot of public swimming locations. In addition to contributing to 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.560 the popularity and at least for some accessibility of swimming, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.320 Anett Kellerman's fame and skill led to a completely different 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.359 aspect of her career, Vaudeville and Hollywood. We're going to 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.800 talk about that after we paused for a sponsor break. 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.600 A lot of Annette Kellerman's fame as a swimmer came 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:34.919 because she was naturally a performer. She was definitely talented. 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.680 I don't want to overlook that at all. She legitimately 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:41.360 won races and she set records, and she was one 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:43.320 of the best swimmers of her era. 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:45.760 But a lot of the attention. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.480 That she got for those successes was due to showmanship 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.600 and an openness with her body that was not really 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.840 typical for the time. A woman's swimmer was already relatively 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.120 novel in a lot of places, and a woman swimmer 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:04.080 who flaunted social expectations to proudly wear a scandalous swimsuit 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.919 was a real attention getter. This attention actually led her 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.320 to a career in vaudeville. In nineteen oh six, having 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.840 performed at the London Hippodrome and won numerous races in Europe, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.920 she sailed for the United States to perform at amusement 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.800 parks and theaters. Her vaudeville act involved a combination of swimming, 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.840 high diving, water stunts, and mermaid shows, for which she 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.280 often designed all of her own costumes. She would eventually 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.760 donate oli her costumes and memorabilia to the Sydney Opera House. 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:35.720 We will put a link in the show notes where 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.479 you can go look at them. There's a lot. There 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.639 are lots and lots of pictures of this collection that 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.480 you can browse through, and they are fascinating. Although water 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.919 shows already existed in vaudeville, Kellerman added a lot of 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.240 her own flare and incorporated ballet and other movement in 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:55.200 what would become a precursor to synchronize swimming. Her biggest 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.240 production at the New York Hippodrome included a core of 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:02.520 two hundred mermaids, all swimming in tandem. She also tried 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.760 her hand at other types of performance, including mail impersonation 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:10.040 and high wire walking. By nineteen fourteen, Kellerman had become 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:14.480 one of the highest paid performers in vaudeville. Also during 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.439 her time in vaudeville, she got married after proposing to 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.879 her manager, Lewis Sullivan, who was known as Jimmy, in 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:26.080 nineteen twelve. Running parallel to her time in vaudeville, Kellerman 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:29.480 also began acting in films. Her first films were a 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:31.879 series of silent shorts made while she was trying to 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.439 work at a contract dispute between two different theater managers. 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.760