WEBVTT - Host Faves: Annette Kellerman 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:06.199 Hey, listeners. This episode is part of our new playlist 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.920 to help everybody get through these times we're living in. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.400 It's our host faves playlist. Yeah, these are just some 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.000 of our personal favorites, ones that we had a particular 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.599 affinity for, and because these are stressful and trying times, 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.240 we tried to stick to the ones that weren't quite 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.160 as dour. So hopefully they'll give you a little lift. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:31.560 Stay safe. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:41.600 a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:46.040 the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly fry So. Uh, 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:50.599 summer's coming, at least in theory. I think I think 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.880 summer has definitely arrived where you are. Yeah, I mean, 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.480 I guess technically, it's still cooler than it usually would 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.640 be this time of year. Uh, it is not warm 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.600 at all. It's fifty seven degrees right now. We're recording 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.279 this on May. Yeah, Like, I think our high today 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.800 might be eighty, which sounds hot to some people, but 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.800 for Atlanta at the end of May, that's really not. Yeah. Yeah, 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.040 it's it's been a We've had an unseasonably cool um 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.840 May up here in New England anyway, though at least 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:24.960 in theory, summer is either on the way or here 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.080 for most but not all of our listeners, so it 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:33.080 seems like a good time talk about swimming. We yes, specifically, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.000 we are talking about Annett Kellerman, who gets a lot 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.040 of the credit for developing the woman's one piece bathing 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.399 suit and then for making it socially appropriate for women 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.480 in a lot of the English speaking world to put 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.480 on an outfit that you could actually swim in without 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.640 drowning and then go out in public that way. Uh, 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.440 and perhaps kind of ironically, she was Australian, where it 0:01:55.560 --> 0:02:00.880 is definitely not coming on summer. So Australians, we have 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:05.640 some Australian history today that is uh, seasonally incongruous for 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.120 where you actually live. Yeah, unless you happen to be uh, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.400 somebody who's downloading it late in the game, in which 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:16.079 case store hooray summer for you as well. Annette Kellerman 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.000 was born in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. She was 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.960 coy about her birth date, and it's variously cited as 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.840 July five or sixth of eighteen eighty six, eighteen eighty seven, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.359 or eighteen eighty eight. The sixth is the most frequently 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.520 cited date. Her father, Frederick, was a violinist born in Australia, 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.280 and her mother, Alice, was a pianist and a music 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.720 teacher who was originally from France. When she was young, 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.680 Annette had to wear braces on her legs because of 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.880 persistent weakness, and not only were these braces painful to wear, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.280 but she also found them embarrassing. The cause is unclear. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.080 A few sources site ricketts or polio, and later on 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.520 in her life she speculated that hip might have been 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.040 a calcium deficiency her a warning to her own account. 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.320 Actual doctors at the time said that it was because 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.360 she had been allowed to learn to walk too early, 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.240 or that she had chalk in her bones. Neither of 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.680 those are real things would have caused her to need 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:17.160 leg braces. Um so totally unclear, but the braces were 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.280 a real part of her life. That's what you get 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.880 when you go to cartoon doctors. Like chalk in your 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.000 bones sounds like such a cartoon diagnosis, and chalk bones 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.960 is a nickname for like one congenital bone condition, but 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.240 it has nothing to do with what she was experiencing. 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.040 Is a totally different set of symptoms, so very weird. Yeah, 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.040 whatever the cause of her disability, eventually her father visited 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.600 a doctor who recommended swimming lessons, and at first and 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.880 That was really terrified of this plan, possibly because it 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.440 meant exposing her legs to people, which she did not 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.520 want to do because they were visibly undeveloped, and she 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:56.600 begged not to have to go. But her parents and 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.200 the doctor were all certain that swimming would really help. Oh. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.000 She and her brothers were taken to Frederick Cavell's baths 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.360 so they could learn to swim, and the Cavils were 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.160 actually a whole family of swimmers there in the International 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.480 Swimming Hall of Fame for their combined contributions to the sport. 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.040 It took a net a lot longer to get the 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.440 hang of swimming than it took her brothers. They were 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.960 both able to swim on their own after a handful 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.560 of lessons, but it took a net close to twenty 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.359 But once she knew how to do it, as predicted, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.120 it really did help her build her strength up and 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.800 her legs and with the water supporting her, she could 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.120 move around without having to wear the braces and that 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.320 would later describe her gradual improvement through swimming as a 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.760 process of intense joy. By the time she reached the 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.360 age of thirteen, her muscle development was more or less 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.720 typical for a child her age, although she was susceptible 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.480 to muscle strains and had to wear very tightly laced 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.560 boots until she was eighteen. A lot of the swimming 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.720 strokes that are recognized and used competitively today were still 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.480 new or in the process of being developed and refined, 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.080 So what Annett learned at first was basically the breaststroke, 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:05.480 and that was the stroke that she used mostly when 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.080 she was exercising at first. At about the age of fifteen, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.000 she started branching out into learning other strokes, putting dedicated 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.960 effort into practicing them and getting better at them, and 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.719 soon she told her parents that she wanted to start 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.880 competing in swimming. Her first swimming race was a local event, 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:27.120 and she won it. Annette's father had been incredulous when 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.920 she said she wanted to enter a swimming race. He 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.400 had thought of swimming as something she was doing because 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.839 of her disability, not as something she would seriously pursue 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.599 for her own sake. But once she had that first 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.600 win under her belt. He was instrumental in her progress 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.080 as a competitive swimmer, essentially becoming both her trainer and 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.480 her coach. As soon as she started seriously competing, a 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.800 net started winning races and setting records. In nineteen o two, 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.159 at the age of about sixteen, she won a one 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.800 hundred yard championship for New South Wales and also set 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.680 a world record for swimming a mile with a time 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.520 of thirty two minutes and twenty nine seconds. That same year, 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.599 she started participating in long distance swimming races and public 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:16.320 diving demonstrations. Her time in the water wasn't only about competition, though, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:21.400 She started doing mermaid shows in Australian aquariums along with 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.640 other aquatic performances while she was still in her teens. 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.839 Although she was winning races and making a name for 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.039 herself as a competitive swimmer, she wasn't really able to 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.000 earn an income from doing so. So Annette and her 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.240 father moved to England with the hope of finding more 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:41.120 lucrative opportunities to compete and perform. Once they arrived in England, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.560 they had a really hard time getting started. Although Annette 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.279 already held multiple records and swimming. They didn't know anyone, 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.200 and Annette didn't have a local reputation to try to 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.080 build on, so her father hatched a plan to drum 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.920 up some publicity. She would swim twenty six miles, which 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.120 was forty two kilometers down the Tims from Putney to 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.359 black Wall. In nine five. Annett, at about age eighteen, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.919 became the first woman to make this swim. Although it 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.320 did indeed bring in a lot of media attention, the 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.440 swim itself was terrible. The Thames was filthy, and Annette 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.120 later said she felt like she'd swallowed big mouthfuls of 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.360 oil from the surface of the river. She'd also had 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.560 to dodge a lot of flotsam, garbage, tugboats and barges 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:29.400 along the way. But afterward, a sports editor from the 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:34.040 Daily Mirror approached her with another idea. The Daily Mirror 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.080 was the first paper in the UK to use photographs 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.640 rather than illustrations, and the editor thought that articles on 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.160 a net complete with photographs of her in the scandalous 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.600 swimwear that we're going to talk about a little bit 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.040 more later, if you thought that would sell a lot 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.560 of papers. So we offered to back her in attempts 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.840 in an attempt to swim across the English Channel, along 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.680 with paying for and writing about swims along the coast 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.360 to train for it. This entire enterprise was wildly successful 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.360 in almost every way. Annett's training swims down the coast 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.920 drew huge crowds, and the articles and their corresponding photos 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.360 sold lots of papers. She swam an average of forty 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.840 five miles or seventy two kilometers per week, increasing the 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.200 distance of each swim until she had done the twenty 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.800 four miles stretch from Dover to Ramsgate. At that point 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.200 she thought she was ready to try to conquer the Channel. 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.440 Although that's a slightly shorter distance than her swim down 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.280 the Thames, swimming in the English Channel is far more 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.400 difficult due to the very cold water, the waves, and 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.520 the tides. She made her first attempts to swim across 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.120 the English Channel along with six men on August five. 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.320 They all started their swim at about three in the morning, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.320 all from different points along the coast, based on where 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:52.440 they thought the currents and the tides would be the 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.520 most advantageous. Each swimmer was accompanied by a steam tug 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:58.840 in a rowboat in case they fell into some distress 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.520 along the way, and then periodically hot chocolate or food 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.600 could be handed down to the swimmers from these boats 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.160 to keep their energy up. An advertiser had given a 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.160 net chocolate to eat along the way, but the combination 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.199 of chocolate and the choppy water really made her seasick. 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.280 The further she went, the bigger her pay day would be. 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.240 Those so she kept herself going through that seasickness by 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.839 thinking the longer you stick, the more you get. She 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.000 stuck it out for about six and a half hours, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.480 and she was paid thirty pounds. This was the first 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.880 of Kellerman's three attempts to swim swim the English Channel, 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:36.920 and as with her swim down attempts, she was the 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.720 first woman to make the attempt. The closest she came 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.439 in these three attempts to actually crossing was about three 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.880 quarters of the way, which took ten and a half hours. Later, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.960 Kellerman would say she thought she had the endurance to 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.200 swim the channel, but not the raw strength. In her 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.839 eighteen book How to Swim, she wrote that she didn't 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.640 think a woman would ever successfully swim the English Channel. 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.800 She was proven wrong in when Gertrude utterly crossed in 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.640 fourteen hours thirty nine minutes, not only swimming the channel, 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.960 but beating the previous record time by more than two hours. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:16.199 Today there are lots of women swim across the English Channel, 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.440 including swimming at three consecutive times, like swimming it across 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.480 one way and then going back and then going back 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:28.200 across again, which is astounding to me. So in Kellerman's 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.160 first attempt to swim across the English Channel, the male 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.320 swimmers who were swimming that night were allowed to be nude, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.280 but she had to wear a swimsuit that chafed her 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.840 skin just terribly. And this brings us to her efforts 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.960 to make suitable swimwear for women, which we will talk 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:56.520 about more after a sponsor break. That swim down the 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.480 Thames and the attempts to cross the English Channel, we're 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.839 not an at Kellerman's only long distance races in the 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:07.760 nineteen hundreds. Before leaving Australia, she had taken multiple long 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.440 distance swims down the Yarra River, including becoming the first 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.480 woman to complete a ten mile stretch. In nineteen o five, 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.160 she participated in a race down the sin where she 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.079 tied for third with with Thomas William Burgess in her 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.480 account of this race and How to Swim, she wrote 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.960 that well meeting spectators kept calling out that she was 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.400 almost there and had just two bridges more, and when 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.760 she realized she was not almost there, and she became 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:38.200 just really discouraged because she had worn herself out doing 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.920 what she thought was her final push to the finish line. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.560 So when Burgess caught up to her and saw that 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.600 she was crying in a very lovely show of sporting behavior, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.760 he stayed with her and encouraged her for the rest 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.400 of the of the race, and that is how they 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.439 came to tie. In June of nine six, Kellerman also 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.439 won a twenty two mile or thirty six kilometer race 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.320 down the Danube. I think anyone also who has ever 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.880 run a race knows the the ire of please don't 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.200 tell me if you're almost there, when you're not, when 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.880 you're not now. And it was a little bit unclear 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.960 to me whether these were the people in the guide 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.559 boat or the people who were just spectators who were 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.160 saying this. But like she they got her a couple 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.439 of times, and then like time number three of them 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.520 being like, you're almost there, she was like, no, I'm 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.920 not well, right, and it's almost always well intentioned, like 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.320 if you but let this be a note if you're 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.839 ever spectating a sporting event, please don't fib to the participant, 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:36.959 because it does more to harm their head game than 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.080 than help. UH. And in most of these events, Kellerman 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.559 was one of very few women, and sometimes she was 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.440 the only woman, and she typically swam them wearing a 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:48.960 swimsuit that was actually made for men. So this was 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:53.040 not unheard of in Australia at this point. UH swimming 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.679 was already a more established sport in Australia than it 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.600 was in the United Kingdom or the United States, but 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.560 it was astonishing in a lot of the rest of 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.920 the English speaking world, where water was for bathing, not 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.640 for swimming. Bathing meant getting into the water a little 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.520 way and you might wait or play or maybe float 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.960 a little out there, but you didn't really swim, and 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.160 a lot of people didn't even know how to swim. 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.600 The idea of man made swimming pool was also still 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.080 quite recent at this point, like there had not even 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:32.920 been one built for the Olympics yet, So like bathing 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.520 was a thing that happened at a beach, whether it 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.440 was like a lakeside beach or a seashore beach. It 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.160 did not really happen in a pool, and even if 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.000 you wanted to swim, if you were a woman around 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:46.720 the turn of the twentieth century, your bathing entire was 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.439 not something you could actually swim in. The standard bathing 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.400 costume for women was essentially a dress with a length 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.880 that ranged within a couple of inches above or below 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.360 the knee. It had a blousey top and puffy, usually 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.520 short leaves, sometimes with the sailor's collar. It was cinched, 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.520 belted or ribboned at the waist, and worn with stockings 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.240 and bathing slippers or sometimes even bathing boots that went 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.880 all the way up the calves, and many women wore 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:18.200 their bathing clothes with corsets and other underpinnings. Here is 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.600 what and that Kellerman had to say about these outfits. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.680 Quote there is no more reason why you should wear 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:30.760 those awful water overcoats, those awkward, unnecessary, lumpy quote bathing suits. 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.600 Then there is that you should wear lead chains. Heavy 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.320 bathing suits have caused more deaths by drowning than cramps. 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.120 I am certain there isn't a single reason under the 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.680 sun why everybody should not wear lightweight suits. Anyone who 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.760 persuades you to wear the heavy scurty kind is endangering 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:55.320 your life. Just thinking about wearing tights into the water 0:14:55.640 --> 0:15:00.120 is a horrifying prospect to me. Oh, I don't know why, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:05.040 it just kind of grosses me out. Uh. For competitive 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.440 women's swimmers, there was a grudging exception to the standard 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.360 of dress. They could wear a men's bathing suit, which 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:14.400 was more like a T shirt and shorts, sometimes constructed 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.480 all as one piece. But this also starts a whole 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.720 chicken and egg situation. Women weren't supposed to be seen 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.760 and attired that they could actually swim in, which created 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.560 a huge barrier for entry for the sport of swimming. Yeah, 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.600 if people were like, well, I guess you can wear 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.240 a men's suit for this race, that left the question of, 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.040 like all the training you would need to do to 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.000 be able to compete in the race in the first place. 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.320 It was this whole social standard of what was acceptable 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.760 for women to wear that led Kellerman to invent a 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.360 new swimsuit. In five she was scheduled for a swimming 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.040 performance at London's Bath Club and some of the royal 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.480 family was to be in attendance. The men's bathing suit 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.440 that she had been wearing was determined to be inappropriate 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.480 because it was two revealings. So Kellerman bought a pair 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.000 of black stockings and she sewed them to the legs 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.360 of her men's bathing suit, creating what was effectively a 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.200 one piece garment that covered her from her shoulders to 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.040 her feet. From there, she began tweaking and refining this 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.040 original design, eventually developing a one piece, form fitting garment 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.760 without sleeves. The lengths of the legs varied from full 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.160 length and stalking like to stopping at the thigh. Although 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.320 this would be considered pretty modest swimwear by a lot 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.440 of today's standards, it was not at all modest by 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.000 the standards of the day. Like we said before the 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.320 first break, the very idea of a woman in public 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.640 and such a garment was enough to sell newspapers. It's 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.560 widely reported that in seven Kellerman was arrested for indecency 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.560 on Revere Beach in Massachusetts while wearing one of these swimsuits. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.160 Although there's no arrest in the log books, it's a 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.640 story that came up again and again and again during 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.920 her own lifetime, including from her own mouth like at 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.680 don't think she made this up, but people have noted that, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.879 like they can't find a document that actually details the arrest. 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.600 In spite of heavy resistance to the idea of women 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:14.800 being out in public so relatively unclothed, Kellerman persisted. She 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.600 launched her own line of women's swimwear, some of which 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:20.560 came with a Modesty Panel, which was a close fitting 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.280 skirt that went from waste to knee, covering the thighs 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.119 but bringing along far less fabric and weight than the 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.720 previous era of swimsuits. She became so closely associated to 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.800 this type of swimwear that soon people were calling anything 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.520 that looked like it and a net Kellerman or just 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.520 a Kellerman, although it was a name she trademarked and 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.320 went to court to defend when she needed to, and 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:47.360 at some beaches, Kellerman type suits were actually banned. As 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.639 Kellerman became more famous and her swimsuits became more widely adopted, 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.800 it gradually became more acceptable for women to be seen 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.280 in them, and for women to participate in the sport 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.800 of swimming, and compounding that for swimming in general to 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.560 be seen as a recreational activity. Some of this was 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.920 part of an overall growth in the popularity of swimming, 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.320 but it wasn't just happenstance. Kellerman was an active advocate 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.240 for women to learn to swim, and for swimming to 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.280 be seen as an acceptable form of exercise, recreation, and 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.639 competition for women. She wrote quote, I am not trying 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.280 to shut men out of swimming. There's enough water in 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.880 the world for all of us. But as men can 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.879 indulge in so many other sports where women can make 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.320 a poor showing or cannot compete at all, swimming may 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:41.400 well be called the women's sport. But unfortunately this progress 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.280 did not apply to all women. Even though Kellerman herself 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.720 wrote things like quote there is nothing more democratic than swimming, 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.440 and a clean, cool, beautiful, cheap thing we all from 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.639 cats to kings can enjoy, swimming was not actually accessible 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.520 to everyone. In the United States, public beaches and as 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.240 they were built, public swimming pools were often racially segregated, 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.639 and the Indigenous population was barred from many public swimming 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.600 areas In Australia, So while Kellerman was a staunch advocate 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.520 for making swimming accessible to women, that was really most 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.119 applicable to white women. And to add another layer to 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.840 all of this, a lot of the swimming strokes that 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.919 she learned as a child and then helps to popularize 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:28.679 and as an adult were either patterned after or directly 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.800 taught to white swimmers by Indigenous Australians and indigenous people 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.800 from elsewhere in the Pacific. So like a lot of 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:41.040 the art and skill of swimming drew from indigenous knowledge, 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.320 but indigenous people were excluded from a lot of public 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:49.160 swimming locations. In addition to contributing to the popularity and 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.240 at least for some accessibility of swimming, and that Kellerman's 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.240 fame and skill led to a completely different aspect of 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.200 her career, Vaudeville and Hollywood. We're going to talk about 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:13.000 that after we paused for a sponsor break. A lot 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.239 of Annette Kellerman's fame as a swimmer came because she 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:21.480 was naturally a performer. She was definitely talented. I don't 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.560 want to overlook that at all. She legitimately won races 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.639 and she set records, and she was one of the 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.679 best swimmers of her era. But a lot of the 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:34.520 attention that she got for those successes was due to showmanship. 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.680 And an openness with her body that was not really 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.840 typical for the time. A woman's swimmer was already relatively 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.200 novel in a lot of places, and a woman swimmer 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:50.119 who flaunted social expectations to proudly wear a scandalous swimsuit 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.959 was a real attention getter. This attention actually led her 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.399 to a career in vaudeville. In nineteen o six, having 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.920 performed at the London Hippodrome and one numerous races in Europe, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.000 she sailed for the United States to perform at amusement 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.840 parks and theaters. Her vaudeville act involved a combination of swimming, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.919 high diving, water stunts, and mermaid shows, for which she 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:16.320 often designed all of her own costumes. She would eventually 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.199 donate all of her costumes and memorabilia to the Sydney 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.280 Opera House. We will put a link in the show 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.160 notes where you can go look at them. There's a lot. 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:26.600 There are lots and lots of pictures of this collection 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:30.240 that you can browse through, and they are fascinating. Although 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.880 water shows already existed in vaudeville, Kellerman added a lot 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.159 of her own flare and incorporated ballet and other movement 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.840 in what would become a precursor to synchronize swimming. Her 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.120 biggest production at the New York Hippodrome included a core 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.280 of two hundred mermaids, all swimming in tandem. She also 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.120 tried her hand at other types of performance, including male 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:56.320 impersonation and high wire walking. By Kellerman had become one 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:00.719 of the highest paid performers in vaudeville. All during her 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.200 time in vaudeville, she got married after proposing to her manager, 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.800 Louis Sullivan, who was known as Jimmy, in nineteen twelve. 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.760 Running parallel to her time in vaudeville, Kellerman also began 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.000 acting in films. Her first films were a series of 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.320 silent shorts made while she was trying to work out 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.639 a contract dispute between two different theater managers. Later on, 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.600 when other people started to copy her water act and 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.280 her pay in vaudeville consequently plummeted, she turned to film 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:35.440 almost entirely. Kellerman's film roles involved lots of water and swimming, 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.159 and sometimes they also played off the fact that the 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:42.480 South Pacific was pretty exotic to American audiences, which meant 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:46.119 that Kellerman herself was often seen as exotic as well. 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:50.160 Her first full length movie was Neptune's Daughter, which came 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.879 out in nineteen four She played a mermaid wearing sheer 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:57.720 body suits that matched her skin tone. In nineteen sixteen, 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.200 she started a film called The Daughter of the Gads, 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.600 which was a fantasy drama. She played Anisia, who was 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:06.520 the daughter in question. In this film, she had a 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.320 scene in which she was completely nude, although part of 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.160 her body was covered by her hair. It was one 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.040 of the first fully nude appearances by a major star 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.199 in a non pornographic movie. Her final film, Venus of 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:24.080 the South Seas, came out in There are definitely people 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:28.040