Bier Publishes Book on Women's Swimming

Tue., Aug 07

Did you follow the success of Missy Franklin and other female U.S. swimmers at the London Olympics? Don't forget about the pioneering women who had to overcome sexism and a host of other obstacles to win the right to enter Olympic competition for the  first time in 1912.  

Their trials and triumphs are chronicled in Southern Librarian Lisa Bier's book Fighting the Current: The Rise of American Women's Swimming, 1870-1926, featured in the August 5 edition of the New Haven Register. See the story here: 
Women swimmers bucked tide of sexism to compete in Olympics 100 years ago; SCSU librarian's book says competition deemed 'too unfemale' (by Sandi Kahn Shelton).

The topic of American women's swimming seems especially relevant at Southern at the moment because Southern swimmer Amanda Thomas recently went to the Olympic trials after winning two national championships this spring at the NCAA Division II Women's Swimming and Diving Championships in Mansfield, Texas. Amanda won the NCAA Championship in the 200 individual medley for the second consecutive year and set a new Division II record (2:00.09). She then won her second consecutive title in the 400 IM (4:16.25). She followed that race as runner-up in the 200 butterfly and with a third place finish in the 200 backstroke on the final day of the championships.

Bier's book looks at the beginnings of women's competitive swimming in the United States and discusses, among many other topics, the difficulty of finding clean places to swim; the awkwardness of women's bathing/swimming clothes; the fact that many people did not know how to swim recreationally and had to be taught; and the bias against women athletes in general and the belief that female swimmers were "unsexing" themselves. Bier writes about the beginnings of the lifesaving movement and lifeguards, and explains that the first year  American women were permitted to compete in the Olympics as swimmers was 1920 -- nearly 100 years ago.

Bier is related through her grandfather to Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926, and her discovery of this relation led her to research American women's swimming.