NEW YORK — Gertrude Ederle, who was the toast of America and Europe in 1926 when she became the first woman to swim the English Channel, died Sunday. She was 98. In a roaring decade where Americans cheered daredevils, few were as celebrated as Ederle, who was 20 when she made her historic swim on Aug. 6, 1926. “People said women couldn’t swim the channel,” Ederle told Associated Press in a 2001 interview marking the 75th anniversary of her feat. “I proved they could.”
When she returned to her native land, there were celebrations, receptions and a ticker-tape parade for her in New York City, where she was born in 1905, according to the family. She met President Coolidge, was paid thousands of dollars to tour in vaudeville, played herself in a movie (“Swim, Girl, Swim”) and had a song and a dance step named for her. Only five men had succeeded in swimming the channel before her, and she beat the record by more than two hours.