Entertainment involving performers was immensely popular in the 1920s, such as movies, theater, music, dancing, and sports. Perhaps the most famous performer was illusionist Harry Houdini. Houdini was a living legend, performing seemingly impossible death defying stunts and escape acts on a daily basis, leaving crowds speechless. Harry Houdini popularized escape acts and illusion as a form of entertainment that was distinct from magic shows, exposed frauds, and left behind a legacy many would do anything to achieve. Along with this legacy, he left behind a life of mysteries.  

Harry Houdini, born Erik Weisz in Hungary, moved to the United States when he was four years old in 1878.¹ His father was a rabbi and had accepted a job offering in Wisconsin and had moved there earlier than Houdini, his mother, and his 4 brothers.² The family moved to New York 9 years later, when Houdini’s father decided he was not making enough to support his family in Wisconsin.³ From an early age, Erik, nicknamed Harry, had an immense fascination with magic, especially with “French conjurer Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin”.⁴ Young Harry was so inspired by Houdin that he altered his last name to use as his own future stage name. He began his career at the age of nine in a local circus, alongside his brother, but he did not come into the public eye until his escape acts took off a few years later.⁵ When his father passed away in 1892, Houdini took it upon himself to provide for and support his family, and so he began touring.⁶ He worked his way up in the entertainment and stunt/illusion industry, and by the 1920s, Harry Houdini would have been a household name across the world.⁷ 

Houdini escaped death thousands of times, escaping from straight jackets, jail cells, and handcuffs, sometimes underwater. He made the impossible possible, embodied a new type of superhuman, and fascinated everyone who came to see him perform. There did not seem to be a single situation that he couldn’t overcome. That was, until late October 1926, when Harry Houdini finally met his match. He “so often had seemed to thousands to be cheating the very jaws of death” but this time, he was unsuccessful.⁸ The chain of events leading up to his death were perhaps more mysterious than his actual death. 

Prior to the main series of events leading up to his death, Houdini nearly severed his foot in his water torture cell trick in Albany on October 11, 1926, but emerged with just a fractured ankle.⁹ He visited the hospital several times, first to confirm it was fractured, then for treatments.¹⁰ He was advised to take time off from shows to allow his ankle  to heal and avoid making it worse or causing permanent damage.¹¹ Like many other instances, he ignored this advice, and continued his shows. The continuing of these performances didn’t allow his body to heal his ankle and left his body and immune system significantly weakened.¹² This lowered immunity made him highly susceptible to further infections and diseases. Even if he had been in good health, it was still not likely Houdini would have been able to survive the events that were to come. Contrary to popular belief, he did not actually die in his Chinese Water Torture Cell. This false cause of death was introduced in the 1953 movie titled Houdini, in which Houdini died within this cell.¹³ The truth about his death is much more complex than this Hollywood depiction of drowning. 

October 22: The Punch

Harry Houdini was scheduled to perform a show at the Princess Theater in Montreal on the evening of October 22, 1926. He was preparing and relaxing before the show in his dressing room, when a group of students came to visit him. One of the McGill University students, J. Gordon Whitehead, asked if it was true that he could “withstand hard blows without injury” to the abdomen.¹⁴ Houdini often boasted about the strength of his abdomen, and was very proud of it. Without warning, Whitehead punched Houdini as hard as he could in his stomach, reportedly multiple times, leaving him bent over in pain.¹⁵ Houdini tried to ignore the pain, as he had a show that evening, and one of the physically and mentally strongest men in the world could not show weakness to his fans. Houdini proceeded to perform the show in its entirety, despite suffering stomach cramps and pain throughout it. 

October 23 & 24: severe pain and show

The next morning, Houdini boarded a train from Montreal to Detroit, where he had a show on the night of the 24th. By the time he had arrived, the pain had significantly worsened. After he got settled in his dressing room, a local physician was called due to growing concern and declining condition. After laying his hand on Houdini’s stomach, he diagnosed him with appendicitis.¹⁶ At some point his appendix ruptured, releasing toxins into his abdominal cavity, requiring emergency surgery.¹⁷ Houdini decided to push  through the pain, despite needing emergency surgery, and gave his final performance of his life on October 24, 1926, at the Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan.¹⁸ Some spectators described this performance as “disappointing”, as Houdini had made several mistakes.¹⁹ After discovering that Houdini was performing with a ruptured appendix, fans “realized that Houdini had given his life to perform for his admirers right up to the last minute”.²⁰ After finishing the 2.5 hour long show, the pain became more severe and unbearable, but surgery would not be performed until the following afternoon.²¹ Apparently, instead of undergoing emergency surgery, Houdini decided to call his doctor back in New York to get a second opinion, a decision that would soon turn out to be deadly.²² 

October 25: 1st surgery, October 28: 2nd surgery

On October 25, Harry Houdini underwent an operation to remove his appendix at Grace Hospital.²³ When his abdomen was opened up, it was discovered that it was filled with pus and severely infected.²⁴ Because the surgery was so delayed to work around the show schedule, the toxins from his ruptured appendix had already seeped into his bloodstream, resulting in full body poisoning and sepsis.²⁵

Dr. Arnold Van de Laar, a surgeon in Amsterdam, explains “at first, the pus can be contained by the surrounding intestines, but in the next stage the appendix dies off locally and bursts. Feces and intestinal gases are then released into the abdominal cavity. The patient experiences a sudden increase in the pain in the lower right of the abdomen, which then spreads throughout the whole abdomen and becomes so severe that it is no longer possible to say exactly where it is coming from. This is the stage of life-threatening peritonitis”, which is exactly what Houdini experienced.²⁶ 

On October 28, Houdini had to undergo a second surgery to rinse out his abdomen from any remaining pus in an attempt to further remove and contain toxins, but the efforts to save his life came too late.²⁷ The toxins had already poisoned his entire body, which was essentially a death sentence. The next three days would have been filled with hopelessness knowing there was nothing else that could be done to save him, and it was only a matter of time until his body gave up.  

October 31: Houdini’s death

Harry Houdini met his unfortunate demise on the afternoon of October 31, 1926. After being in Grace Hospital for about a week, “Houdini whispered to his brother, Theo, ‘I’m tired of fighting…guess this is going to get me’”.²⁸ Aware that he had very little time left, he took one last look at his wife before closing his eyes and leaving this world at 1:26 pm.²⁹ Despite escaping every impossible situation, he could not escape his death. Houdini passed away alongside two people who had an immense impact on his life and career. His official cause of death was listed as “diffuse peritonitis streptococcal”, a severe abdominal infection caused by his ruptured appendix.³⁰ This would have been an agonizingly slow and painful way to go, especially knowing that there was nothing else anyone could do to save him. 

Even though the punch to Houdini’s stomach did occur a little over a week before his death, some doctors do not believe it had any correlation to his death, while others believe it directly caused it, so it became a topic of debate.³¹ It is unknown if he was suffering from appendicitis prior to the punch and it just made the pain more severe, if the punch ruptured an already inflamed appendix, or if it had caused the appendicitis. 

Significance 

Aside from his career of performing  illusions and stunts, Houdini dedicated a major part of the last years of his life to debunking fraudulent spiritualists and mediums. Spiritualism, the practice of attempting to make contact with the dead, was at an all time high following the end of World War I, with distraught grieving family members attempting to contact deceased loved ones. Houdini reportedly “had little patience for anyone who claimed to be in possession of supernatural powers”, and denied claims that he had supernatural powers that assisted him and allowed him to perform these escape tricks.³² It was thought that towards the end of his life, Houdini “seemed to find more satisfaction in his successful exposure of imposture and fraud” than in his performances, supported by the fact that he “offered a $10,000 reward to any psychic who could present “physical phenomena” that could not be explained rationally”.³³ He even went as far as to testify “before Congress in support of legislation that would have criminalized fortune-telling for hire and ‘any person pretending to … unite the separated’ in the District of Columbia”, or in other words, make it illegal to profit off fortune telling in Washington, DC.³⁴ His whole thought process behind this was that he was keeping “mediums” and “spiritualists” from trying to make a profit off grieving people. There was even talk for a time where people were speculating that angry spiritualists had a role in his death, some of which took credit for killing him.³⁵ To these spiritualists, Houdini was a direct threat to their careers, so having a role in his demise would have been an accomplishment. While he believed it was fake, Houdini was not so much against people practicing these kinds of things as he was people claiming it was real and doing it for money. These practices targeted vulnerable people, which he felt was immoral. Houdini’s death allowed these spiritualists, whether or not they were fraudulent, to continue their practices for a personal profit. 

Ironically, for 10 years after his death, his wife attempted to contact him through a seance on the anniversary of his passing. He had apparently told her that if there was a way for the dead to communicate with the living, he would do all that he could to reach her after he had died.³⁶ His wife, Bess, hosted annual seances every single year for 10 years hoping that one time he would come through. After the 10th seance, Bess stated “‘Houdini did not come through. … I do not believe that Houdini can come back to me, or to anyone”, putting an end to the hosted seances.³⁷ Although Bess stopped, people still perform Halloween seances in an attempt to contact Harry Houdini from beyond to this day. 

Chapter 2 of The Modern Temper by Lynn Dumenil, titled “Work and Consumption”, discusses the aspects of society in the 1920s that allowed Houdini to become so popular. The 1920s was a decade that “embrace[d] leisure, consumption, and self expression”.³⁸ This rise in popularity of leisure activities expanded Houdini’s audience into both the upper and middle class of the United States. People had more extra money to spend on things that they enjoyed, which for many was going and watching performances.³⁹ Without this societal change, Houdini’s career would not have become nearly as successful as it did.

Harry Houdini was one of the most iconic and remembered performers of the 1920s. His role in the entertainment industry defined a new type of entertainment and performance. Additionally, his career showed the immense role that entertainment had in society, the grief that came after WWII, and the popularity of leisure activities during the 1920s. He had immense talent and ‘“a wondrous power that he never understood”, as well as a passion for debunking fraudulent spiritual practices.⁴⁰ Other people had done stunts and escape acts, but not to the level that he did. He was doing hundreds of shows a year, sometimes performing multiple times a day, all across the world. He gained immense fame from these impossible escapes and became a household name and an entertainment, illusionist, and escape icon for the next century. 

Citations

• Andrews, Evan. “10 Things You May Not Know About Harry Houdini.” History.com, May 27, 2025. https://www.history.com/articles/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-harry-houdini.
• Cox, John. The biggest myth, March 23, 2012. https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2012/03/biggest-houdini-myth.html.
• “Did Houdini Really Die After Being Sucker Punched?” Yale University Press, October 21, 2025. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/03/11/did-houdini-really-die-after-being-sucker-punched/
• Dumenil, Lynn. The modern temper: American culture and society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 1995
• Greene, Bryan. “For Harry Houdini, Séances and Spiritualism Were Just an Illusion.” Smithsonian Magazine, October 28, 2021. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-harry-houdini-seances-and-spiritualism-were-just-an-illusion-180978944/.
• “Harry Houdini (1874-1926).” PBS. Accessed March 10, 2026. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/houdini-biography/.
• Featured Image: Harry Houdini (1874–1926), Stone walls and chains do not make a prison — for Houdini. n.d. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Houdini.jpg.
• “Harry Houdini: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center.” Harry Ransom Center. Accessed March 10, 2026. https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=01275.
• “Houdini in Detroit.” Michiganology, September 3, 2021. https://michiganology.org/stories/stories/.
• “Houdini’s Magic.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) 11, no. 1 (1987): 40–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45266473.
• “On This Day”, 2010. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0324.html.
• Featured Image: Thurston, John H, photographer. Houdini jumps from Harvard Bridge, Boston, Massachusetts / John H. Thurston, stereopticons. Boston Massachusetts, 1908. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015650990/.
• Featured Image: Final Houdini seance in 1936. [from a Photo Taken in 1936] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010646059/.
• Featured Image: Schmidt, George. Casket of Harry Houdini being carried to hearse. March 2, 2010. Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/casket-of-harry-houdini-being-carried-to-hearse-news-photo/97296027.
• “Our Point of View.” Scientific American 136, no. 1 (1927): 12–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24976961.
• Van de Laar, Arnold. “The Death of an Escape Artist: Harry Houdini – the History Reader.” The History Reader, May 29, 2025. https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/death-escape-artist-harry-houdini-appendicitis-surgery/.
• Featured Image: Your appendix is a small, tube-shaped organ that sticks out from your cecum. It’s located in the lower right side of your abdomen. Cleveland Clinic. Accessed March 11, 2026. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/appendix.

1. Evan Andrews ︎
2. “Harry Houdini (1874-1926)” ︎
3. “Harry Houdini (1874-1926)” ︎
4. Evan Andrews ︎
5. “Harry Houdini (1874-1926)”, Evan Andrews ︎
6. “Harry Houdini (1874-1926)” ︎
7. Evan Andrews ︎
8. “On This Day” ︎
9. “On This Day” ︎
10. “On This Day” ︎
11. “On This Day” ︎
12. “On This Day” ︎
13. John Cox ︎
14. “On This Day”, “Did Houdini Really Die After Being Sucker Punched?” ︎
15. Evan Andrews ︎
16. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
17. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
18. “Harry Houdini: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center.” ︎
19. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
20. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
21. “On This Day” ︎
22. “Did Houdini Really Die After Being Sucker Punched?” ︎
23. “On This Day”, “Houdini in Detroit.” ︎
24. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
25. “Houdini in Detroit.” ︎
26. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
27. Arnold Van de Laar ︎
28. “Houdini in Detroit.” ︎
29. “Houdini in Detroit.” ︎
30. “Houdini in Detroit.” ︎
31. “On This Day”, Arnold Van de Laar ︎
32. “Houdini’s Magic”, Evan Andrews ︎
33. “Our Point of View”, Evan Andrews ︎
34. Bryan Greene ︎
35. “Did Houdini Really Die After Being Sucker Punched?” ︎
36. Bryan Greene ︎
37. Bryan Greene ︎
38. Lynn Dumenil ︎
39. Lynn Dumenil ︎
40. “Houdini’s Magic” ︎

More Resources

Great Escapes By Joan Higbee https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/970224/houdini.html

Harry Houdini: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/pdf/01275.pdf

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini by Joe Posnanski

The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini by Ruth Brandon

kconley

Ramapo College sophomore majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies + Music Industry

 

Across the entire world, the 1920s served as a period of extensive change. Americans experienced the roaring prosperous twenties while Europeans reconstructed from World War I yet Mexico lived through unceasing revolutions. During 1926-1929, both soldiers and civilians lost their lives in the Cristero War to the extent of 90,000 fatalities. The paper analyzes the Cristero War within the historical framework of Mexican society and politics in the 1920s. The United States lived in economic prosperity with cultural freedom at the same time that Mexico faced difficulties applying revolutionary standards which led to widespread population alienation (Meyer, 2008). During the Cristero conflict the worldwide modernization patterns of the 1920s took distinct forms in different societies that produced violent religious upheaval when they confronted traditional cultural identities and beliefs.

Historical Background

After Mexican independence in 1821, the complex dynamics between the state of Mexico and its Catholic Church initiated the Cristero War. Maintaining their belief that progressive reform and democratic progress required diminished Church power, secular reformers pursued measures to reduce the institution’s enormous economic and political capabilities during the 19th century. Anticlerical measures of the 1857 Constitution and Reform Laws by President Benito Juárez finished in nationalized Church properties and separation of state and religion.

In 1910, the Mexican Revolution launched as an opposition against dictator Porfirio Díaz but transformed into several opposing movements that contested Mexico’s prospective direction. Several parts of the 1917 Revolutionary Constitution enforced strict limitations upon religious practices across Mexico (Bailey, 2019). The Mexican Revolution adopted Article 3 to forbid religious education alongside Article 5, which banned monastic orders, and Article 24 limi, ted worship to church buildings as well as Article 27, which legalized all church properties, then denied legal recognition to churches through Article 130 while imposing public dress code limitations on clergy members and demanded civil official approval for clergy during Article 130.

The first post-revolutionary president, Venustiano Carranza, along with Álvaro Obregón, chose not to strictly implement religious opposition laws in order to establish political harmony. Plutarco Elías Calles took over the presidency in 1924 and began systematically enforcing strict measures against the Catholic Church because he believed revolutionary nationalism rejected its religious presence.

The Calles Law and Religious Persecution

The Calles administration established significant changes between the state and church during this period. Calles established the “Law for Reforming the Penal Code” in June 1926 as “Calles Law,” through which he established harsh consequences for breaking anticlerical provisions in the Constitution (Reich, 2018). All priests needed state registration according to the law, while the government maintained limits on religious numbers per state and bans on teaching religion and public worship.

These measures were launched rapidly through forceful execution. Government officials closed monasteries together with convents and religious education institutions. The authorities performed foreign religious staff deportations and created laws against priestly apparel in public while stopping religious parades. Local area officials exceeded federal commands through church closures and religious image destruction. When the government enforced restrictions on Catholic practices, it targeted longstanding Mexican traditions that maintained their essence through rural Catholic communities.

This marked the first time in Mexican history when the Catholic leadership stopped all church-based public worship on July 31, 1926, denying millions of their vital sacraments and religious events. Unpaid religious clerks conducted the “clerical strike” as a peaceful stand that would pressure the government to modify its legislative measures (Rice, 2017). These actions heightened conflicts to a point that sparked military revolt across Mexico.

The Cristero Uprising

In late 1926, several states across Mexico entered into armed conflict with the government because of its religious policies, most notably in the highly Catholic western-central region known as the Bajío. The rebels started using the battle cry “Viva Cristo Rey!” as their war chant. The rebels started using “Long live Christ the King!” as their battle cry and received the nickname “Cristeros.” An initial wave of spontaneous local insurgencies formed into widespread opposition against government religious policies.

Peaceful rural peasants, alongside indigenous people and landowning families, participated in the Cristero rebellion based on their strong connection between Catholicism and their cultural beliefs and social integration. Various Catholic demographics from urban areas united with them by bringing monetary backing, tactical help, and material resources. The “Feminine Brigades of St. Joan of Arc” served as women combatants who managed supply chains and medical aid while distributing ammunition to the resistance forces.

Despite their lack of organization, the Cristero fighters learned to fight through irregular warfare against federal troops. As the conflict grew more intense Generals Enrique Gorostieta regardless of his former stature as a federal general and his skeptic religious views and José Reyes Vega and Jesús Degollado Guízar led the development of the Cristero fighters into a larger fighting force. During 1928, the Cristero fighters successfully ruled across the Mexican states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and Colima.

During this time, the government intensified its violent tactics against rebellion supporters. Federal troops conducted executions on captured Cristeros while troops destroyed suspected rebel-supporting villages and forced population relocations to separate the rebels from each other. The Church punished priests through immediate executions when they displayed support for the revolt (Bailey, 2019). Both sides launched a vicious cycle of violence throughout the conflict, which included Cristeros violently targeting government officials and teachers but also federal forces carrying out executions and church desecration of priests.

International Context and U.S. Involvement

During this period, Mexican-American diplomatic relations stood in a state of diplomatic strain. American petroleum industries clashed with the Mexican government through diplomatic conflicts because they objected to provisions in the 1917 Constitution commanding control of natural resource assets. The religious tensions between Mexico and American Catholics became international because of the U.S (Butler, 2007). Catholics defended Mexico’s religious freedom, yet Protestants, along with secular groups, sided with the Mexican government’s church-state separation efforts.

Officially, the U.S. government declared neutrality but concurrently sold weapons to the Mexican government, and at the same time, it instituted an arms embargo against the Cristeros. Under President Calvin Coolidge, America adopted a different approach when he appointed Dwight Morrow as the new ambassador to Mexico in 1927. Morrow devoted his efforts to building better diplomatic ties, which led him to play a decisive role in ending the conflict.

The Cristero War took place alongside the rise of religious conflict, which spread throughout different parts of the world. The 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial in the United States” displayed the battle between tradition and modernity (Rice, 2017). Through the 1929 Lateran Treaty, Italy resolved previous disputes between its state authorities and the Vatican. The modernizing world witnessed worldwide societal responses to religious questions during these simultaneous historical events.

The Mexican Church and State in the Modern Era

The peace treaty that settled the Cristero War developed in June 1929 as the “Arreglos” through diplomatic efforts by U.S. Ambassador Morrow. The agreement enabled religious worship services inside church buildings while allowing religious education activities within church properties, though educational institutions remained prohibited. The Church acquired the right to demand alterations of the existing laws (Meyer, 2008). The Church accepted to silence its criticisms against the government as part of this deal.

The resulting agreement contained solutions that failed to please the groups involved fully. Several Cristeros felt despair after religious leaders failed to bring about formal legal change through their concessions to the government (Young, 2019). The government decided to maintain the Constitutional anticlerical provisions while agreeing to enforce them with reduced strictness. Hardline officials in the government believed the giveaway of concessions was a major mistake.

The agreement ended the primary combat state, although both parties felt unsatisfied. The June 27, 1929 reopening of churches led most Cristero guerrillas to surrender their arms by August of that year (Tuck, 2021). The government reneged on its promise to provide amnesty, so it executed over 500 leaders of the Cristero movement. The federal government’s betrayal of its promises ignited another Cristero rebellion called “La Segunda,” which fought through the 1930s.

Cultural Impact and Legacy

The Cristero War deeply marked Mexican culture and historical memory. The Cristero War motivated Graham Greene to write “The Power and the Glory” in 1940 and filmmakers to produce the divisive “For Greater Glory” in 2012. John Paul II carried out Church canonizations and beatifications of 25 martyrs during the conflict with 25 priests and other laypeople attaining sainthood status in 2000.

During the Cristero War, rural populations showed that revolutionary elites in Mexico City had lost touch with the traditional Catholic beliefs and cultural elements their rural supporters wished to preserve (Butler, 2007). The conflict made the post-revolutionary state soften its approach to secularization as it recognized that Catholicism remained fundamental to Mexican cultural traditions.

During the 20th century, religious tradition, as an element of Mexican politics, battled continuously against the revolutionary anti-religious initiatives. The government altered its opposition to religion through World War II because it needed national unity for survival (Meyer, 2008). Under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexico changed its constitution in 1992 to establish legal religious organization recognition, which enabled public worship outside churches and permitted clergy voting rights along with faith-based education in private schools.

Conclusion

Studies of the Cristero War constitute an essential piece of the North American historical narrative that receives minimal attention. During the 1920s, Americans lived in prosperity and cultural liberation. However, Mexicans faced violent conflicts about how religion should shape their national identity. During the 1920s, modernizing trends of the era created diverse reactions across nations, which prompted opposition toward any threats toward prevailing cultural characteristics.

References

Bailey, D. C. (2019). Viva Cristo Rey!: The Cristero Rebellion and the church-state conflict in Mexico. University of Texas Press.

Butler, M. (2007). Popular piety and political identity in Mexico’s Cristero Rebellion: Michoacán, 1927-29. Oxford University Press.

Meyer, J. (2008). The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican people between church and state 1926-1929. Cambridge University Press.

Reich, P. L. (2018). Mexico’s hidden revolution: The Catholic Church in law and politics since 1929. University of Notre Dame Press.

Rice, E. A. (2017). The diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico, as affected by the struggle for religious liberty in Mexico, 1925-1929. Georgetown University Press.

Tuck, J. (2021). The holy war in Los Altos: A regional analysis of Mexico’s Cristero rebellion. University of Arizona Press.

Young, J. (2019). Mexican exodus: Emigrants, exiles, and refugees of the Cristero War. Oxford University Press.

Bessie Coleman was a culmination of ‘firsts’ in one person. She was the first African American to be awarded an international pilot’s license, the first Black woman in the world to fly an airplane, and the first Native American to earn a pilot’s license and fly an airplane.¹ She was also likely the first person in her family to attend college for a full semester, and was the key catalyst in helping her family of independent women find their own paths as they moved from Texas to Chicago. Beyond all of these individual achievements, she also served as an inspiration for future women and African Americans who would follow in her footsteps or be the ‘firsts’ of their own professions. 

Early Life

Bessie Coleman was born on January 26, 1892 as Elizabeth Coleman. She grew up in Waxahachie, Texas, to a mom who was African-American and a dad who was part African-American and part Native American. In 1901, her father left for Oklahoma, also known as ‘Indian Territory’, in order to find more job opportunities. A few years later, her older brothers also left for Chicago, leaving Bessie as the oldest sibling to her three younger sisters. Even though she loved school and took advantage of the little opportunities presented to her in her one room, segregated schoolhouse, her childhood was filled with the king crop of the time, cotton. Each spring, Bessie’s school would close down for “cotton season” and Bessie, as soon as she was strong enough, had to go with her mother to pick cotton.² From a young age, Bessie hated the restrictions placed upon her in the South, and would frequently ‘slack off’ during her time working in the fields. She continued her interrupted education, and saved enough money to attend one semester of college at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University. After one semester at the college, her money ran out and she had to go home. But, at 23 years old, having had enough of the segregation and limited opportunities in the South, she decided to join her brothers in Chicago. 

Bessie Coleman, like many other Black Americans during the early 20th century, moved from the South to Chicago during the Great Migration. Searching for better job opportunities and an escape from the severity of the Jim Crow South, she was a part of the “burgeoning black population in northern cities [that] had led to the growth of a middle class which seemed to represent the potential of the race.” ³ Because so many Black people were moving from Southern cities to the North, they banded together in ethnic enclaves, similar to many other minority groups and immigrants. In these enclaves, they had better opportunities for work and social mobility than they had in the South with strict Jim Crow laws. Even though Black people in the North faced the same segregation that they faced in the South, the community they built in cities like Chicago and New York City allowed Black migrants the ability to obtain jobs they could not have in the South. This combination of community and pluralistic identity gave the opportunity for a certain level of social mobility that would have been unobtainable for them previously. 

In Chicago, Bessie continued to dream of being something more than just a ‘common’ Black worker. Through her work as a manicurist, Bessie met many successful and influential people in Chicago’s Black community. These people further inspired her to want more for her future and her race. Although Chicago was segregated like the South, Bessie saw a flourishing Black community where people of her race could be successful. It was a combination of these successful people, as well as her brother’s experiences abroad, that convinced Bessie to pursue a future in aviation. After trying and failing to find someone to teach her how to fly, Bessie’s brother told her that “You n*gger women ain’t never goin’ to fly…not like those women I saw in France.”⁴ It was these harsh words from her brother which finally inspired her to go abroad—to France—to obtain her pilot’s license. 

Aviation Career

While I outline most of Bessie’s important aviation accomplishments in the timeline below, the start of her aviation career is also important. As Bessie tried to find a school or a pilot to teach her how to fly in America, Bessie was faced with two problems. First, no one wanted to teach a Black aviator, and second, no one wanted to teach a Black girl aviator. So, she turned her visions overseas, to the Ecole d’Aviation des Frères Caudron at Le Crotoy. During her time at Crotoy, she saw a student pilot die in a brutal plane accident, which she explains “was a terrible shock to my nerves, but I never lost them. I kept going.” ⁵ Bessie obtained her pilot license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) despite the threat of discrimination, segregation, or death. At the time, the FAI was the only international organization giving people the right to fly anywhere in the world.⁶ So Bessie returned as an internationally recognized Black woman pilot. She was ready to show the country that anyone who put their mind to it could take to the sky. 

As outlined in this timeline, Bessie performed a number of important entertaining shows. First, she performed the first air show performed by a Black woman. Next, she was the first person to offer plane rides to Black people in the South. In one of her shows, she was also the first person to have a Black woman parachutist jump from a plane. While Bessie was always passionate about aviation, her true passion was equality. She even left a movie planning to depict her life because they wanted to present her in “tattered clothing and with a walking stick and a pack on her back.” ⁷ She continued to emphasize the interconnectedness of her race and her success beyond leaving the racist movie set. She refused to perform at a show in her hometown where Black and White audience members would use segregated entrances. Once they agreed to let everyone use the same entrance, Bessie agreed to give the performance.⁸ 

Bessie’s biggest hope for her aviation career was to raise funds in order to open a school to educate future Black pilots. Throughout her career, she dedicated many shows and lectures to fundraising for this cause. She even settled down in Orlando, opening up a beauty school and focusing on lecturing rather than performing stunt shows, to raise more money to create this school for future Black students. In the last weeks of her life, she found her benefactor in Edwin M. Beeman, son of Harry L. Beeman, the creator of Beeman chewing gum. At the same time, she was living with Viola and Hezakiah Keith Hill, who reintroduced her to religion, and encouraged her to stop performing stunt shows and focus on targeting church crowds for funding for her school. Before her final show, she told the Hills that “the time she had spent with them was the happiest she had ever known.” ⁹

Death

Just as her life was seeming to come together, with funding, found family, and a sense of happiness and religion, Bessie’s life came to a sudden end. Bessie had plans to perform on May 1, 1926, in a stunt show in the Negro Welfare League of Jacksonville’s Field Day. For this show, she was serving as the parachuter herself, with a white pilot, William D. Wills, flying the plane. She used the money from her benefactor Edwin M. Beeman to buy an old “Jenny” which she intended to fly at the Florida show. Wills flew the plane from Dallas, Texas, to Jacksonville and was forced to make two stops due to the poor condition of the plane. Despite the poor condition of the plane, Bessie met Wills and her agent and the promoter of her stunt show, John Betsch, at the field at 7:15am on April 30, to scout the area for where the best spot to jump would be. ¹⁰ She was not strapped into the plane, as she was actively searching for somewhere to jump. Suddenly, the plane went from cruising at 80 miles per hour to 110 miles per hour, and nose dived downwards. At 1,000 feet, the plane did a tail spin, and then at 500 feet, it flipped upside down, and Bessie fell out, somersaulting repeatedly until she hit the ground.¹¹ Wills attempted to regain control of the plane, but it crashed into a nearby farm of Mrs. W. L. Meadows, killing him instantly. After the plane crashed in Meadows’ farm, Betsch, came with police to view the remains of the crash. Upon seeing the crash site, he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. But, when lighting the cigarette, the lighter fluid mixed with the gasoline of the plane, setting everything on fire. He was immediately taken into custody under suspicions of trying to destroy evidence, but he was later released. After the tragic death and fire, the fair and dance in Bessie’s honor that were supposed to be held afterwards were replaced with a memorial service, which over 5,000 people attended. 

Aside from her memorial in Jacksonville, Bessie had another memorial in Orlando, organized by Viola and Hezekiah Hill. After this service, Viola Hill and a military escort traveled with her body to Chicago, where over 10,000 people went to pay their respects throughout May 5 and May 6. Her final service, for close friends and family, was held on Friday May 7, and though only 1,500 people could fit inside the church, another 3,500 stood outside on the street.¹² The plethora of memorial services and viewing opportunities show just how much of an effect Bessie had on the Black community. Her death even received notice in white newspapers, such as The Morning Press, The Daily News, The Tampa Tribune, The Miami News-Record and many others. ¹³ While these newspapers had short descriptions and referred to Bessie as a ‘Negress’ or ‘Negro aviatrix,’ many Black newspapers dedicated columns, front pages, and entire sections to her, even days after her death. In the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper,  George S. Schuyler wrote a memorial to her, summing up Bessie’s hope for herself and her impression on the black community in a few sentences:  “Bessie Coleman wanted to be an aviatrix and would not be frustrated by racial barriers. She succeeded in spite of them. More and more younger Negroes are following in her example. Many more ought to.” ¹⁴

Bessie’s Significance in the 1920s and Beyond

Growing up African-American in the early 20th century, Bessie Coleman was a prime example of the struggles of handling a pluralistic identity during the 1920s. As the first Black woman to fly an airplane and the first Black person to hold an international pilot’s license, Bessie Coleman strived to help improve the opinions of Black people in professional fields as she broke the glass ceiling in the aviation field. She had the similar mindset to other Civil Rights activists during the 1920s, which was that the issue of “twoness could be resolved–that they could be both American and black, without sacrificing either.”¹⁵ The struggle of handling pluralism and American identity was an obstacle in Bessie’s work as an aviator, but she also used her multiple identities of being Black and a woman to inspire future generations. The discrimination, segregation and limited attention to her achievements and her advancements in women’s working rights all connect Bessie to the larger struggles experienced by minority populations in the 1920s. 

Combating Segregation

Bessie’s biggest focus in her aviation career was to establish a school to educate future Black pilots, because of the segregation and discrimination she faced when obtaining her education. Many times throughout her life, she was quoted as saying that “We must have aviators if we are to keep up with the times. I shall never be satisfied until we have men of the Race who can fly.” ¹⁶ She wanted others to follow in her footsteps, and show people who believed that African-Americans were not as smart as White Americans that they could succeed just as much when given the opportunity. Her willingness to branch out into a field severely underpopulated with both Black people and women helped inspire future aviators of her race to do the same:  “Coleman’s return to the U.S. in 1921 as a fully qualified pilot helped African Americans reclaim some agency in aviation.” ¹⁷ Even though a very limited number of Black people had served as pilots in segregated forces in WWI, there was no space for them in the aviation field when they returned to the United States after the war. Further efforts, like refusing to perform at segregated shows in the South, shows her efforts throughout her career to improve the discrimination and segregation that she faced herself. 

While Bessie was never able to open her school for Black pilots, she did inspire many future Black pilots with her resilience and determination despite the segregation she faced. Wiliam J. Powell, a famous Black aviator who founded the Bessie Coleman Aero Club in her honor, dedicated his book “Black Wings” to her.¹⁸ Powell, like Coleman, pushed for more Black aviators, and built a school for Black pilots and mechanics, as Bessie was unable to. Even though he created this school after her death, Bessie still had a profound impact on Powell and inspired him to continue her work in improving opportunities for Black Americans. 

Paving the way for Future Minorities

Through Bessie’s hard work to become a pilot despite the discrimination she faced, she helped pave the way for future women and Black people in fields dominated by white men. In her article on the legacy of Bessie Coleman and Dr. Mae Jemison, Kim Creasman explains that “women like Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female pilot, have shown us that there are many qualified women in our society to take a chance to modify the stereotypes of women and African-Americans.” ¹⁹ Even in the present day, Bessie stands as an inspiration for people trying to get involved in fields that are historically exclusionary towards them. As the 1920s, especially in the South, were not only segregated but outright racist and exclusionary to Black professionals, Bessie’s success and mention in a multitude of White newspapers was “sure evidence of the revolutionary change, however slow, subtle, or imperceptible, she was effecting on white attitudes towards blacks, at least in her home state of Texas.” ²⁰ Though the 1920s were still filled with discrimination and lack of opportunities for Black men and women alike, Bessie was one of the many cases of extraordinary women who succeeded despite the lack of opportunities for her, which inspired young minds in the 1920s and beyond.

While she may not have received recognition from white communities during her lifetime, Bessie was an inspiration to black communities and future black aviators alike, like Lieutenant William J Powell. Powell explains how Bessie inspired a future generation because of her willingness to break into a majority-white field:  “Because of Bessie Coleman we have overcome that which was much worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream.” ²¹ Just like his Bessie Coleman Aero Club, many other organizations were created after her death to honor her and help financially support Black women and men who wanted to go into aviation or similar fields. Organizations like the Aviation Youth Empowerment Foundation have scholarships honoring Bessie Coleman, presented to women, Black Americans, future aviators and future STEM students who have overcome barriers to obtain their college degrees. In the years after her death, many roads were renamed in her honor. In 1996, the US Post office created a stamp in her honor, as a part of the Black Heritage Stamp Series, as seen to the right. Even though it took many years for Bessie’s death and accomplishments to be fully recognized by the American public, she served as an inspiration to Black Americans and women that they could pursue any career they wanted, as long as they put their mind to it.

Suggested Reading

Cline, P.E. “The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Socio-Economic Status in the Life of Bessie Coleman.” Collegiate Aviation Review International, 2019, 37(2), 133-156. Retrieved from http://ojs.library.okstate.edu/osu/index.php/CARI/article/view/7915/7308

Grossman, Ron. “That Road o’hare Is on? It’s Named for Bessie Coleman, Who 100 Years Ago Became the First Black Woman Pilot in America.” Chicago Tribune, November 24, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2021/11/24/that-road-ohare-is-on-its-named-for-bessie-coleman-who-100-years-ago-became-the-first-black-woman-pilot-in-america/. 

Lebow, Eileen F. Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation. (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2002).

Mathias, Marisa, and Mariana Brandman. “Biography: Bessie Coleman.” National Women’s History Museum. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/bessie-coleman. 

Bibliography

Bix, Amy Sue. “Beyond Amelia Earhart: Teaching about the History of Women Aviators.” OAH Magazine of History 24, no. 3 (2010): 39–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25701421.

“Crash Kills 2 Flyers” The Daily News, (New York, NY), May 1, 1926. p. 5

Creasman, Kim. “Black Birds in the Sky: The Legacies of Bessie Coleman and Dr. Mae Jemison.” The Journal of Negro History 82, no. 1 (1997): 158–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/2717501.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024.

“Man and Negress Killed in Accident Near Jacksonville” The Tampa Tribune, (Tampa, FL), May 1, 1926, p. 5

“Negro Aviatrix Killed When Plane Falls” Miami News-Record, (Miami, FL), April 30, 1926, p. 1

“Negro Woman Flier and Press Agent Die in Plane Fall” The Morning Press, (Santa Barbara, CA), May 1, 1926. p. 5

Powell, William J. Black Wings. HathiTrust. Originally published 1934. Accessed April 7, 2025. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4500439&seq=9&q1=bessie. 

Rich, Doris L. Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.) 

Schuyler, George S. “Views and Reviews” Pittsburgh Courier, (Pittsburgh, PA), May 15, 1926, p. 9 

Slotnik, Daniel E. “Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix.” The New York Times, December 11, 2019. 

1. Daniel E. Slotnik “Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix.” The New York Times, December 11, 2019. ︎
2. Rich, Doris L. Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993,) 10. ︎
3. Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024, 286. ︎
4. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 27. ︎
5. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 32. ︎
6. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 34. ︎
7. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 57. ︎
8. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 95. ︎
9. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 105. ︎
10. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 109. ︎
11. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 110. ︎
12. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 113. ︎
13. While a number of white newspapers reported on Coleman’s death, the ones mentioned here are; “Crash Kills 2 Flyers” The Daily News, (New York, NY), May 1, 1926. p. 5; “Man and Negress Killed in Accident Near Jacksonville” The Tampa Tribune, (Tampa, FL), May 1, 1926, p. 5; “Negro Aviatrix Killed When Plane Falls” Miami News-Record, (Miami, FL), April 30, 1926, p. 1; “Negro Woman Flier and Press Agent Die in Plane Fall” The Morning Press, (Santa Barbara, CA), May 1, 1926. p. 5 ︎
14. Schuyler, George S. “Views and Reviews” Pittsburgh Courier, (Pittsburgh, PA), May 15, 1926, p. 9  ︎
15. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 2024, 294. ︎
16. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 36. ︎
17. Amy Sue Bix. “Beyond Amelia Earhart: Teaching about the History of Women Aviators.” OAH Magazine of History 24, no. 3 (2010): 41. ︎
18. Powell, William J. Black Wings. HathiTrust. Originally published 1934. Accessed April 7, 2025, 1. ︎
19. Kim Creasman. “Black Birds in the Sky: The Legacies of Bessie Coleman and Dr. Mae Jemison.” The Journal of Negro History 82, no. 1 (1997): 158. ︎
20. Rich, Queen Bess, 1993, 87. ︎
21. Powell, Black Wings, 1934. ︎

hannahsteinlauf

Hannah Steinlauf is a senior history major with a minor in museum and exhibition studies at Ramapo College. She is a student research aide for the Jane Addams Papers Project. She is a member of the Ramapo College Dance Company and Tri Sigma. Hannah is going to attend Trinity College Dublin for a masters degree in Public History after graduation.

In the 1920s, American culture was increasingly becoming more secularized, creating tensions between modernity and traditional religious values. The first “Miss America” pageants embodied these conflicts, as it became both a target of religious resistance and a reflection of a callback to older ideas. Americans struggled to balance adapting to modernity while preserving their traditional beliefs and values. Religion was losing its influence on Americans with many standards straying away from the strictness of Victorian attitudes. Religion and Protestantism was no longer a dominant force in cultural norms and in efforts to maintain religion, urban churches started programs that created places of worship alongside spaces for social, recreational, and educational purposes. However, many religious leaders, including Protestant ministers and Jewish leaders, faced declining attendance and decreasing support for missionary efforts. These leaders viewed the popular culture of the 1920s, dominated by materialism and the pursuit of wealth, as a decline in religious values. Religious fundamentalists and Evangelical Christians also feared that the country was experiencing a moral and spiritual decline.¹ The first “Miss America” pageants of the 1920s serve as an example of an event that religious groups sought to oppose through protests, aiming to dismantle what they considered a moral decline. The “Miss America” pageant included a bathing suit competition, which many religious groups opposed. They sought to combat the rise of swimwear in the 1920s, particularly for women, viewing it as immoral and immodest. Moral outrage from clergymen contributed to the censorship of physical appearances on public beaches, as they insisted that women cover their knees.² This influenced the “Miss America” pageant because of its emphasis on “bathing beauties”. The pageant was met with further resistance with religious groups claiming it damaged the good choices, reputation, and morals of young women. Groups like Southern Baptists and the “Atlantic County Federation of Church Women”, joined in resistance and protest. Not only did they believe it damaged women’s morals, but they also viewed it as the exploitation of women for financial gain and corrupting them by encouraging rivalry among themselves.³ These protests are credited as having an important role in why the pageant was temporarily paused in 1928 through the early 30s.

Ironically, while traditional religious groups opposed the pageant for being “immoral”, it was an event that eagerly promoted a “traditional” and “conservative” idea of femininity. The “Miss America” pageant aimed to uphold the image of a more traditional woman, distancing itself from  the “New Woman,” represented by women in politics and flappers. Before the “Miss America” pageant was established in 1921, suffragettes held suffrage pageants. They dressed up as influential women in history, seeking to raise public awareness and funds for their political efforts.⁴ However, the “Miss America” pageant focused only on beauty, based on what men and the audience viewed as beautiful. In addition, the pageant strived to distance itself from the flapper image. Flappers were young, single women who strayed away from Victorian constraints by wearing bobbed hair, shorter and less shaped skirts, darker makeup, and smoked. In contrast, the “Miss America” pageant praised “non threatening” women who had conservative hairstyles such as longer hair, were more subservient, viewed beauty as an important goal, and demonstrated capability of being a good wife, homemaker, and mother.⁵ Contestants who had longer hair were more often praised than those with bobbed or bobbed-like hair. It was an important characteristic for “Miss America” to have, especially in the earlier competitions. Pageant organizers also tried to portray the event as “above alcohol” or other habits such as smoking. Overall, the pageant wished to portray its winners as symbols of what a 1920s American woman “should be and look like”. While religious traditionalists viewed it as immoral, the pageant still sought to revive a more traditional ideal of Victorian-like femininity and virtue.

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Riverol, Armando. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992.

Latham, Angela J. “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity.'” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 149–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x.

Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June 1, 2000): 105–26. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.2000.3401_105.x.  

Watson, E., ed. “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Bettmann Archive. Policewomen Checking Length Violations. Chicago, Illinois, 1921.

Bettmann Archive. 1924 Miss America from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ruth Malcomson. 1924.

Thomas, Bob. Cinema Personalities, 1923, American Actress Colleen Moore. Popperfoto/Getty Images, 1923.

Featured Photo: Atlantic Foto Service. Contestants of the 1925 Miss America Pageant. Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1925.

Citations

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 169-186. ︎
2. Angela J. Latham, “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity,’” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 158, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x. ︎
3. Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 24. ︎
4. Elwood Watson, ed., “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 28-29. ︎
5. Watson, “There She Is, Miss America”, 32. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

          Growing up as part Native American and part African-American in the early 20th century, Bessie Coleman was a prime example of the struggles of handling a pluralistic identity during the 1920s. During the 1920s, having multiple identities was difficult for people as the public was unable to see people’s multiple identities, like being both Black and American, or German and Jewish, or Chinese and a woman. As the first Black woman to fly an airplane and the first Black person to hold an international pilot’s license, Bessie Coleman strived to help improve the opinions of Black people in professional fields as she broke the glass ceiling in the aviation field.¹ She had the similar mindset to other Civil Rights activists during the 1920s, which was that the issue of “twoness could be resolved–that they could be both American and black, without sacrificing either.”² The struggle of handling pluralism and American identity was apparent throughout the entire decade, as people felt forced to choose between their two identities. But activists like Bessie Coleman fought to minimize that struggle for future generations.

Bessie Coleman, like many other Black Americans during the 1920s, moved from the South to Chicago during the Great Migration. Searching for better job opportunities and an escape from the severity of the Jim Crow South, she was a part of the “burgeoning black population in northern cities [that] had led to the growth of a middle class which seemed to represent the potential of the race.”³ Because so many Black people were moving from Southern cities to the North, they banded together in ethnic enclaves, similar to many other minority groups and immigrants. In these enclaves, they had better opportunities for work and for social mobility than they had in the South with strict Jim Crow laws. Even though Black people in the North faced the same segregation that they faced in the South, the community they built in cities like Chicago and New York City allowed Black migrants the ability to obtain jobs they could not have in the South. This combination of community and pluralistic identity gave the opportunity for a certain level of social mobility that would have been unobtainable for them previously. 

Black professionals like Bessie Coleman with her national successes—even if she had to go overseas for her education—inspired other Black professionals to strive for the same level of recognition. Especially when supported by Black Newspapers like the Chicago Defender, which emphasized Black achievements, people within the community could read about others achievements, and recognize, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois “that African Americans had the capabilities to be educated, and moreover, to be equal citizens.”⁴ Bessie promoted these same ideals; not only did she refuse to perform at shows where Black people were not allowed admission, but she also “was determined to bolster black pride. She was supported in this by a black press that seized on her image as both role model and grist for editorials promoting black equality.”⁵ The large number of Black Newspapers that arose during a time in which the Harlem Renaissance was booming and Black culture in general was receiving more recognition not just in black communities but in slowly in white communities as well, shows how there was a small change in beliefs in recognition that Black people could be successful in the arts as well. 

Bessie Coleman’s life and death fits into the broader historical context of the 1920s because even though she was an extremely successful Black woman, and her death was widely recognized in Black Newspapers, like this Chicago Defender article to the right, and it was generally ignored in White newspapers, or downplayed as the newspaper focused on the death of her younger, less advanced white co-pilot, William Wills. 

 Similar to other successful Black people during the 1920s, her achievements were not widely recognized until years after her death. And while she struggled to make a name for herself in the white, male-dominated field of aviation, she concurrently worked to ensure that Black patrons had a space at her shows. Bessie carefully balanced her two-fronted fight “in defense of equal rights for blacks in a white-dominated society and equal rights for black women in a male-dominated black society.”⁶ Similar to other activists during the 1920s like Ida B. Wells or W. E. B. Du Bois, Bessie had to juggle her pluralistic identities and her professional goals.  Even though Bessie was a number of “firsts,” she was not the only Black person, or the only Black woman, who was pushing the boundaries during the 1920s and rising above the expectations society had for them. Just like other minorities in the 20th century, Bessie had to work harder than many other white people, and most of her accomplishments were not recognized until after her death. But, she helped pave the way for minorities in the years to follow. 

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. 

Rich, Doris L. 1993. Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, D.C.). 

Slotnik, Daniel E. “Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix.” The New York Times, December 11, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/obituaries/bessie-coleman-overlooked.html.

1. Slotnik, Daniel E. “Overlooked No More: Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix.” The New York Times, December 11, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/obituaries/bessie-coleman-overlooked.html.  ︎
2. Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: 
   Hill and Wang, 2024, 294. ︎
3. Dumenil, 286. ︎
4. Dumenil, 289. ︎
5. Rich, Doris L. 1993. Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. Smithsonian Institution Press, (Washington, D.C.), 60 ︎
6. Rich, 60. ︎

hannahsteinlauf

Hannah Steinlauf is a senior history major with a minor in museum and exhibition studies at Ramapo College. She is a student research aide for the Jane Addams Papers Project. She is a member of the Ramapo College Dance Company and Tri Sigma. Hannah is going to attend Trinity College Dublin for a masters degree in Public History after graduation.

Gertrude Ederle was one of the most important women of the 1920s. She is a perfect example of a “new woman.” On August 6, 1926, she proved that women could not only compete in physical challenges on the same level as men, but do them better. Her historic swim came at a time when women were regularly having their swimwear evaluated for modesty on public beaches, often being fined for showing too much skin or not having the correct swimming attire. Ederle’s swim proved that women were capable of accomplishing anything, and that they could professionally perform these tasks in attire that was previously deemed unacceptable.

By the mid 1910s, psychologists were beginning to recognize women as sexual beings. Universities began to teach classes on female sexuality, and the media began to write books and articles about this ever expanding topic. As the twenties dawned, women began to explore and adopt this new part of their identity. Birth control slowly became accessible, championed by people like Margret Sanger, and attitudes towards women in the workplace changed. Young women’s views on marriage and societal norms also began to shift towards a more open and freeing nature. As women began to enter the workplace, they were able to financially support themselves for the first time, instead of having to rely on a man for all their needs. While the average woman’s wage was not enough for her to live off, it did allow her to purchase luxuries she may not have previously had access to and gave for more freedom in her clothing choices and hairstyles. This economic freedom also gave women social liberation, allowing them more time to experience the world’s offerings, which they often did in jazz clubs and dance halls. This new existence was particularly freeing for young women, who were able to delay marriage and enjoy their newly liberated status instead of having to immediately fall into the role of wife and mother. 

Ederle’s swim further supports this narrative. At the age of 20, when in previous eras would have been married, relying solely on their husbands, and likely already mother, Gertrude Ederle was breaking societal norms. She was an athlete, trying for elite conceptions like the Olympics, and redefining what women could achieve.

Despite the progress women began to make in the 1920s, they saw great push back from other members of society. Young women in particular were often called “immoral, irresponsible, irreligious” for their sexual, financial, and social liberation. Their clothing, hair styles, entertainment choices, and actions were looked down upon by older generations. Movies, newspapers, and books contained tales of women involved in scandalous content ending with lessons on morality and warnings to young women about their futures. Despite these attempts at repression, young women continued to express themselves and were insistent on expressing their personal choices in fashion and behavior.¹

Gertrude Ederle was no exception to this. Women’s swimwear was not designed for practicality, but modestly. Ederle challenged this. On August 6, 1926, she stood on a French beach lathered in lard and in a customized two piece swimsuit. She modified a traditional swimsuit to meet the needs of an athlete about to undertake an extremely difficult physical feat. Upon the completion of her swim, Ederle in her modified swimsuit was seen around the world on the front pages of the paper. Ederle proved to the world that a “new woman” was a capable and accomplished person. She would go on to receive numerous awards and opportunities because of her swim. 

The idea of a “new woman” is one who challenges social norms ultimately leading to the acceptance and adoption of new ones. Gertrude Ederle certainly did this. She was a prime example of a 1920s “new woman.”

Bibliography:

“600,000 VISIT CONEY IN A DAY OF RECORDS: FIFTY GET INTO TROUBLE OVER BATHING SUIT RULES AND THOUSANDS CUT FEET. STRICKEN BY HEAT IN SURF MAN IS PULLED FROM ICY WATER AND RESUSCITATED — LOST CHILDREN OVERRUN POLICE STATION.” New York Times (1923-), Jul 21, 1924. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/600-000-visit-coney-day-records/docview/103355297/se-2.

Constad, Alyssa. “From Bloomers to Bikinis: A Brief History of the Bathing Suit.” South Carolina State Museum, n.d. https://www.scmuseum.org/learn/deeper-dive-series/bloomers-bikinis-brief-history-bathing-suit.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. First Edition. Hill and Wang, 1995.

“GERTRUDE EDERLE’S SUCCESS.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/gertrude-ederles-success/docview/103809286/se-2.

faythe

I am an undergraduate teacher education student at Ramapo College, minoring in history. As a future teacher, I hope to inspire my students to love the subject of history and to understand its importance in their lives.

Women’s lives had changed significantly from the late 19th century into the 1920s. They became more involved in politics and increasingly joined the workforce. This challenged the traditional ideas of women’s roles within society. Social and sexual norms surrounding women had also changed, leading to new ideas about womanhood and femininity. Many women had moved away from restrictive clothing of the Victorian era, as seen with the example of flappers. 

In the 1920s, Nellie Tayloe Ross achieved a historic title. She was elected Governor of Wyoming in 1924. She took office in 1925, becoming the first woman to ever serve as a governor in the U.S.A. Ross represents the “new woman” but in a way that differs from the stereotypical image of the carefree flappers of the 1920s. She was an older woman actively involved in politics. During the late 19th century and into the 1920s, women had entered the political arena. They became political actors, supported suffrage, and sought progressive and urban reforms. One popular reform was prohibition, a law infamously tied to the image of the 1920s. Ross was one of these women. She was a firm supporter of prohibition. Ross had believed that the consumer was just as guilty as the bootlegger. She was even once requested to authorize an investigation of the Park County Sheriff, who had been accused of accepting pay from an alleged bootlegger. 

The “new woman” of the 1920s would agree on one thing: women’s roles within society were changing, and their roles would be different from the old restrictive version of womanhood. However, this did not prevent disagreement and tension. Women’s ideas of feminism and women’s rights were sometimes at odds. Some women, like Julia Lathrop and Frances Perkins, believed in women’s distinctiveness. They believed that women needed special protections that aligned with their sex. While many women supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which promoted equal rights between men and women, many women like Lathrop and Perkins felt indifferent to it. They feared this would create barriers to sex-based labor legislation that specifically protected working women. Ross is an example of a woman who possessed different ideas of women’s newfound roles and power. Feminists and suffragists did view Ross’ election as a victory and a step towards women’s political voices. However, some women’s rights movement leaders were disappointed with Ross’ refusal to prioritize her influence on the movement. She believed in women’s capabilities within the political field but was not a “hardcore feminist”. Echoing the traditional views during the previous century, she stated that a woman’s role as a wife and mother was of the highest importance. She would become cautious with her involvement in feminism because of its negative image within the politics of the time. This cautiousness prevented her from appointing more women in government positions. Nevertheless, Ross firmly believed in women’s roles within the political sphere. While she promoted femininity, she sought to prove it did not have to dismiss a woman’s right to exercise political power. Her status as the first woman governor still inspired other “new women” to get involved in the field of politics. 

Bibliography

Bettmann Archive. USA: Clara Bow in Get Your Man. 1927. Photograph. Bettmann Archive. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clara-bow-in-get-your-man-news-photo/514892606.

Bettmann Archive. Portrait of Actress Louise Brooks. Photograph. Bettmann Archive. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actress-louise-brooks-poses-for-a-portrait-session-in-news-photo/514205164.

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). October 24, 1929. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1929-10-24/ed-1/seq-3/.

Bettmann Archive. Activist Julia Clifford Lathrop Posing with Her Supporters. Photograph. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/julia-clifford-lathrop-lead-the-way-for-improving-american-news-photo/517294142.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Mackey, Mike. “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics.” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 25–34. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=f5cae36e-3b49-3ace-ba5b-0cabe6b1f206.

Scharff, Virginia. “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (1995): 87–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346786.

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

The English Channel is a three hundred and fifty-mile-long stretch of water that separates the British Isles from the rest of mainland Europe. At its greatest width the channel is one hundred and fifty miles wide, and at its narrowest point stretches a distance of twenty-one miles. This frightening body of water remains cold throughout the entire year, ranging in temperature from forty-six to sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit on average. Separating the two major sections of Europe, the Channel is trafficked by numerous boats, commercial and privately owned. It is also home to natural, deadly creatures like jellyfish and sharks. To brave this treacherous stretch of water takes a willpower and strength most people do not possess. A person must be willing to risk life and limb to swim this gray, churning expanse…¹

Gertrude Ederle was not fazed by the dangers and risks of swimming the English Channel. On August 6, 1926, the nineteen-year-old made history. She became the first woman to successfully swim across the Channel.

Preparing to Make History

Her journey to successfully swimming the English Channel began long before she stepped foot on the French coast at Cape Gris-Nez on the fateful August day. Ederle grew up learning how to swim at the Jersey Shore, where her family vacationed during the summer. These formative years of swim instruction led her to develop a passion for the sport, which continued into her teen years. Trudy proved to be an extremely powerful and accomplished swimmer, setting twenty-nine records between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. For Ederle, successfully swimming the English Channel was the sign of a truly accomplished swimmer. On August 18, 1925, she made her first attempt at swimming the Channel. Eight hours forty-eight minutes into the swim, her coach pulled her from the water. The conditions were extremely rough, and the then eighteen-year-old had swallowed large amounts of salt water. Trudy was extremely upset as she was removed from the water. Channel expert Bill Burgess said, “The girl was short of her best condition… She will do it if she trains properly.”² The speed and strength Ederle showed on her first attempt were unseen before in previous Channel swims. Following her failure to complete the swim on the first try, Gertrude was determined to complete the task. Ederle was interviewed following her failed attempt. She assured the world she would attempt the Channel swim again.

“My motto is ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” And I want the public to know that I am going to attempt to swim the English Channel again next July.” – Gertrude Ederle³

One year later, Gertrude Ederle was back on the French beach at Cape Gris-Nez. Assisted by her sister Margaret, Trudy began to prepare for her second attempt at crossing the English Channel. For this try, she wore a modified black one-piece swimsuit that her sister reworked into a functional two-piece. Part of Ederle’s challenge when attempting to swim the Channel the year prior was her swimsuit. The heavy wool one-piece swimming costume was not designed for the athletic feat that Trudy was undertaking. It weighed her down, becoming another obstacle during an already difficult swim. To prevent this from happening again, Ederle and her sister designed her a one-of-a-kind swimsuit. She also donned a red swim cap and a special pair of goggles, waterproofed with wax. To complete her swimming ensemble, Trudy lathered her body in a thick layer of lanolin and other fatty substances. This coating was supposed to help Ederle stay warm in sixty-one-degree weather and to protect her from possible jellyfish stings.

Ederle’s Swim

At approximately 7:09 a.m., Gertrude Ederle entered the frigid waters of the English Channel. The route she chose to swim had a distance of approximately twenty-one miles from the French to British shores. However, because of the strong currents and tides in the Channel, Ederle would end up fighting through numerous extra miles of water to reach her intended destination. To combat the strong seas, she immediately began to swim at a steady and rhythmic pace using the relatively new American Front Crawl. All previous channel swimmers used a combination of breast, side, or trudgen strokes. These are all traditionally slower swimming styles and require less physical exertion. Ederle’s choice to use the front crawl gave her the advantage of being able to move faster and more efficiently than if she chose to use another swimming technique. This was extremely important because she was pushed, off course, several times, resulting in Ederle swimming a total of thirty-five miles. 

Like her previous attempt, Trudy was not alone as she fought the conditions of the English Channel. She was accompanied by two tugs. Among the people on the Tugs was her sister and father. Henry Ederle was one of the main supporters of his daughter, promising her a brand new roadster if she completed the swim. One of the main jobs of Ederle’s support team was to give her food and fluids to keep her body fueled. These items were delivered to Trudy in a net-like contraption. On her Channel crossing menu, Ederle consumed chicken legs, pineapple juice, chocolate, and sugar cubes. The other major job of the support tugs was to keep Ederle motivated. They played her some of her favorite popular American songs, which included “Rosie O’ Grady,” “Let Me Be Your Sweetheart,” “East Side, West Side,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” These kept her going as she battled through the frigid, churning waters of the English Channel⁴. 

As the hours passed, the conditions of the channel worsened as a squall blew in. Ederle was already battling six-foot waves and strong currents, but they continually got more challenging. The support team on the tugs asked Trudy to stop her swim because of the weather, but she refused and kept swimming. At one point her left leg started to stiffen up, causing her to not be able to kick properly, but this too did not hinder her. Gertrude Ederle fought on. Darkness descended upon her as she neared the English coast. The waiting crowds lit fires to guide her to shore. At 9:40 p.m., fourteen hours and thirty-one minutes after leaving Cape Gris-Nez, France, Ederle stepped foot on English soil. The first person to greet her was a British customs officer requesting her passport. Upon her arrival in Kingsdown, England, Gertrude Ederle was able to claim the title of the first woman to swim the English Channel. She was not only the first woman to swim the Channel successfully but also set a new record for the Channel swim, which was nearly two hours better than the standing record set by a male swimmer in 1923.

The World Responds to Gertrude Ederle’s Accomplishment

Upon her arrival in England, the legitimacy of Ederle’s swim was challenged. The British and French press questioned if she had received extra help or somehow cheated. Even with these false claims, Gertrude Ederle’s accomplishment was not undermined. In an interview with her the following day, Trudy expressed her thrill at successfully completing the Channel swim. When asked how she managed to complete the swim, she said, “I said I would do it; I meant to do it; I did it. I never felt like giving up… I told them not to let me give up, and I stuck to it.⁵” Her mom and dad kept her going too. Even though her mom was not with her, she sent her communications through the radio. These were read to Gertrude and only encouraged her to swim harder. Ederle described her feelings of accomplishment, saying, “I’m tickled to death that I have taken the Channel honors for women to America. That’s great.”⁶. Despite the huge accomplishment, she assured the press she would swim another fourteen hours, “but never again in the English Channel.”⁷

The world was captivated with Gertrude Ederle’s accomplishment. The press coined the term “Queen of the Waves” for Ederle.⁸ Headings like “City Throngs Give Greatest Welcome to Gertrude Ederle,” “Sees Victory Over Corsets, Coach Robison Says Miss Ederle Proves Conquest of Petticoats,” “Hailed as Gertrude of America,” and numerous other titles showed the enthusiasm people had for her. Ederle had articles written about her every move and was greeted by adoring crowds as she visited her grandma in Germany and stopped in Paris. Her greatest welcome, though, had to be when she returned to New York City on August 27, 1926. Nearly two million people welcomed her home. Among the many to congratulate her was the president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, who called her “America’s Best Girl.”⁹ For a time, Gertrude Ederle was recognized among the greatest athletes in American history. She left a legacy in the swimming world, showing that women could accomplish any feat, sometimes even better than their male counterparts.

Significance:

“The New Woman”

The 1920s saw the emergence of the New Woman. Following the passing of the 19th Amendment, young women began to enter the workforce at a rapid rate. Instead of getting married and relying on a husband for financial support, they choose to hold jobs and have economic freedom. This denial of marriage and choice to work went against the standards set by the previous generations of women. Never before had such large amounts of young people been liberated to experience the world on their own terms. These women spent their hard earned money on leisure activities and keeping up with the latest fashion trends.¹⁰

When she swam the English Channel, Gertrude Ederle was at an age where she could have been married or in the process of becoming. Instead, she chose following her life passion and make swimming her career. She accomplished numerous challenging swims during her professional career. Upon her reach as of celebrity status following her Channel Swim, Ederle showed that a woman could not only remain unmarried and become successful in her chosen career, but also do her job better than her male counterparts, having beat the standing record set by a male Channel swimmer in 1923 by nearly two hours. While definitely able to, Gertrude Ederle would never marry, providing for herself until her death, further showing the capacity of a woman in the workplace.

Another huge portion of this recreation of womanhood was the changes in clothing and hairstyles. Young women rejected the strict, structured garments of the Victorian and Edwardian eras in favor of loose-fitting dresses with high hemlines. They also cut their hair into much more manageable bob styles.¹¹ This rejection of the old and adoption of the new was a huge part of the decade. Despite the numerous changes in fashion, swimwear remained relatively the same. Women were expected to wear modest, woolen swimwear. Beaches across the country had police officers whose sole purpose was to ensure that female beach goers were wearing swimsuits of modest and appropriate length. If a woman was found to not meet the modesty standards of a beach, she risked being kicked off the beach, fined, or in extreme cases, arrested. As the popularity of the sport of swimming grew, the old, archaic, heavy woolen swimsuit styles proved to be problematic for competitive swimmers. Little was done to remedy the problem.¹² This left Gertrude Ederle to create her own swimsuit design that would allow her freedom of movement and a more weightless feeling. The result was a custom-made two-piece ensemble that she wore when she successfully swam the English Channel. While her swimsuit would not have been allowed on American beaches, it was needed for her to accomplish such a feat. Thanks to the heavy media coverage of her swim, photos of Ederle in her head of the time getup were seen all over the world. Swimwear did not change overnight, but Gertrude Ederle creating her own swimsuit showed the need for proper active swimwear for women, laying the foundation for the wide variety of options available today. ¹³

The World of Swimming

For much of human history, women have always been viewed as the weaker sex, and this extended to their athletic abilities. At the 1924 Summer Olympics, the farthest swimming distance in the female events was four hundred meters, and the now widely used front crawl was deemed feminine and graceful, “particularly suitable for women.”¹⁴ While slowly gaining notoriety, the front crawl was still not the go-to swimming stroke of athletes. When Gertrude Edele swam the English Channel, she chose to use the front crawl. The front crawl is one of the most effective swimming strokes. It allows the swimmer to maintain a steady rhythm while propelling themselves at a rapid rate forward without exhausting the swimmer.¹⁵ Ederle showed the effectiveness of the stroke, and it gained notoriety through her. The mass consumerism of the decade meant that people around the world were able to hear updates through their radios as she swam across the Channel.¹⁶ Trudy ended up setting a new record using the front crawl. She was a modern woman using a modern swimming technique. Despite Ederle showing the effectiveness of the swimming technique, some people still thought of it as too feminine. Male athletes like Johnny Weissmuller were needed to get the public fully on board with the front crawl.¹⁷

Concerning the frailty of women in the sport of swimming, Gertrude Ederle crushed all previously existing thoughts. When asked for comment on her swimming thirty-five miles, Tom Robison, swimming instructor at Northwestern University, said, “A woman could not possibly have accomplished the same feat thirty years ago.”¹⁸ However, he also stated that “as far as physical strength is concerned, women…have shown a prowess equal to men.”¹⁹ Through newfound liberation, Gertrude Ederle showed that a woman was capable of anything in the world of athletics. 

One hundred years later, at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, both men and women had seven events of varying lengths solely using the freestyle (the front crawl), the most of any stroke. The longest distance event at the games was the one thousand five hundred meter freestyle race. Both men and women competed in the race. For the women, Katie Ledecky, one of the greatest female distance swimmers of this generation, won the gold medal for Team USA.²⁰

Conclusion

Gertrude Ederle’s swim across the English Channel showed that women were capable athletes who could accomplish impossible feats. She embodied a New Woman, rejecting traditional values and creating her own way in the world. Ederle also helped to create changes in the sport of swimming paving the way for female swimmers a hundred years later like Katy Ledecky. Gertrude Ederle was a hero then and an inspiration now.

Further Reading:

“Life Story: Gertrude Ederle.” n.d. Women and the American Story: New York Historical Society. New York Historical. Accessed March 24, 2025. https://wams.nyhistory.org/confidence-and-crises/jazz-age/gertrude-ederle/.

Ward, Mary Ederle, Brenda Greene, and Tim Dahlberg. America’s Girl: The Incredible Story of How Swimmer Gertrude Ederle Changed the Nation, 2009. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BB1455158X.

Citations

Footnotes

1. “English Channel Water Temperature.”
   Ingrid Leonard, “How Wide Is the English Channel?”
   ︎
2. “Salt Water made the Swimmer Ill.” ︎
3. “Miss Ederle to Try Channel Next July.” ︎
4. G Middleton, “Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try It Again.” ︎
5. G Middleton, “Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try It Again.” ︎
6. G Middleton, “Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try It Again.” ︎
7. G Middleton, “Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try It Again.” ︎
8. “Neighborhood Roars Welcome to Trudy.” ︎
9. “Memories are Still Golden for Gertrude Ederle.” ︎
10. Dumenil, 126-127. ︎
11. Dumenil, 135. ︎
12. Ibbetson, “A History of Women’s Swimwear | Fashion History Timeline.” ︎
13. “Life Story: Gertrude Ederle.” ︎
14. Stieglitz, .“The American Crawl” 71. ︎
15. Stieglitz, .“The American Crawl” 71. ︎
16. Dumenil, 77-78. ︎
17. Stieglitz, .“The American Crawl” 72. ︎
18. “Sees Victory Over Corsets.” ︎
19. “Sees Victory Over Corsets” ︎
20. Ioc, “Paris 2024 Swimming – Olympic Results by Discipline.” ︎

Bibliography

“600,000 VISIT CONEY IN A DAY OF RECORDS: FIFTY GET INTO TROUBLE OVER BATHING SUIT RULES AND THOUSANDS CUT FEET. STRICKEN BY HEAT IN SURF MAN IS PULLED FROM ICY WATER AND RESUSCITATED — LOST CHILDREN OVERRUN POLICE STATION.” New York Times (1923-), Jul 21, 1924. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/600-000-visit-coney-day-records/docview/103355297/se-2.

Antrim, Doron K. “Where Is Gertrude Ederle?” Saturday Evening Post 216, no. 50 (June 10, 1944): 100. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=6a6f1381-2306-3721-85bb-8b2ad9766497.

Anderson, Kelli. 1999. “The Young Woman And the Sea.” Sports Illustrated 91 (21): 90. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=5a4a21b0-3450-3347-ab75-4960b18ddd51.

Alec Rutherford, “Expert Says ‘Crawl’ Conquered Channel: Modern Stroke, He Finds, and New Knowledge of Tides Made Fast Time Possible. Ederle Route Described Tells How Course Was Fixed To Catch Favorable Tide – Burgess Long Studied It. Expert Says ‘Crawl’ Conquered Channel.”New York Times (1923-), Sep 01, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/expert-says-crawl-conquered-channel/docview/103811340/se-2.

“Big Welcome for ‘Trudy’ Ederle: City’s Committee Will Greet Channel Swimmer, Coming Today on The Berengaria. Mayor to Present Medal. Neighbors Decorate Several Blocks and Crowds Will Hall Swimmer at Homecoming.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 27, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/big-welcome-waits-trudy-ederle/docview/103676633/se-2.

“Channel Exploit Thrills the City: Public Men Rejoice with Miss Ederle’s Family in Her Achievement. Mother Deeply Stirred, Germans Plan a Demonstration When Swimmer Returns Home.” New York Times (1923-),Aug 07, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/channel-exploit-thrills-city/docview/103814041/se-2.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. First Edition. Hill and Wang, 1995.

English Channel Water Temperature: Current, Historical Data & Forecast. “English Channel Water Temperature: Current, Historical Data & Forecast,” n.d. https://seatemperature.net/seas/english-channel.

G Middleton. “Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try It Again; Is Hailed in France: Bringing Channel Swim Honor to American Women Satisfies Her Ambition, She Asserts. Mother Won, She Insists Tells How Radio From “Mum” Put Fight in Her to Beat Cross tides at Crisis. Welcomed Back to France She Has A Triumphal Gay Talese. New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/miss-ederle-happy-wont-try-again-is-hailed-france/docview/103838653/se-2.

“Gertrude Ederle’s Success.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/gertrude-ederles-success/docview/103809286/se-2.

“Memories are Still Golden for Gertrude Ederle: She has no Regrets about Years since Her Channel Swim.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 06, 1958. 32. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/memories-are-still-golden-gertrude-ederle/docview/114387802/se-2.

“Hailed as “Gertrude of America.” 1926. New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 3. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/hailed-as-gertrude-america/docview/103807642/se-2.

Ibbetson, Fiona. “A History of Women’s Swimwear | Fashion History Timeline.” Fashion History Timeline, n.d. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/a-history-of-womens-swimwear/.

Ioc. “Paris 2024 Swimming – Olympic Results by Discipline.” Olympics.com, n.d. https://www.olympics.com/en/olympic-games/paris-2024/results/swimming.

Leonard, Ingrid. “How Wide Is the English Channel?” Geographic Pedia, June 24, 2024. https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/how-wide-is-english-channel/.

“Life Story: Gertrude Ederle.” n.d. Women and the American Story: New York Historical Society. New York Historical. Accessed March 24, 2025. https://wams.nyhistory.org/confidence-and-crises/jazz-age/gertrude-ederle/.

“Miss Ederle’s Challenge.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 19, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/miss-ederles-challenge/docview/103741744/se-2.

“Miss Ederle to Try Channel Next July: Says She Will Make Charges Against Jabez Wolfee in Thirty Days.” New York Times (1923-), Sep 24, 1925. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/miss-ederle-try-channel-next-july/docview/103509557/se-2.

“Neighborhood Roars Welcome to Trudy: Swimmer is Crowned ‘Queen of the Waves’ by Excited Throng on Amsterdam Avenue. Gertrude Ederle’s Neighbors on Amsterdam Avenue and the Side Streets Welcomed Her Back Home Last Night in a Delirious Demonstration of Affection.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 31, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/neighborhood-roars-welcome-trudy/docview/103739081/se-2.

“Procession from Boulogne to Griz-Nes When She Returns From Dover. Miss Ederle Happy, Won’t Try it Again.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/miss-ederle-happy-wont-try-again-is-hailed-france/docview/103838653/se-2.

“Salt Water made the Swimmer Ill: Miss Ederle Loses Hard Channel Fight.” New York Times (1923-),Aug 19, 1925. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/salt-water-made-swimmer-ill/docview/103606081/se-2.

“Sees Victory Over Corsets: Coach Robision Says Miss Ederle Proves Conquest of Petticoats.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 08, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/sees-victory-over-corsets/docview/103771356/se-2.

“Sets Out Swimming Strongly.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 07, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/sets-out-swimming-strongly/docview/103878697/se-2.

Shapiro, Lauren. 2005. “Can She Do That?” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice 20 (May): 196–98. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=bab5f3eb-b853-3a29-a508-5949c54e0ae9.

Stieglitz, Olaf. “The American Crawl – Praktiken Von Geschlecht Und Moderne in US-amerikanischen Schwimmbecken, 1900–19401.” Gender 10, no. 1.05 (January 2018): 63–80. https://doi.org/10.3224/gender.v10i1.05.

“Tug Party Defends Miss Ederle.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 17, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/tug-party-defends-miss-ederle/docview/103778982/se-2.

Ybarra, T. R. “Cheered at British Shore: She Lands at Kingsdown After Hard Battle From Gris-Nez. Conquers Wind, Rain, Tide Fights for Three Desperate Hours Off English Coast Till Favoring Current Aids. Bonfires Light Last Dash. Searchlights also Sweep from Shore as New York Girl comes in with Strokes Still Strong.” New York Times (1923-), Aug 07, 1926. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/cheered-at-british-shore/docview/103878568/se-2.

faythe

I am an undergraduate teacher education student at Ramapo College, minoring in history. As a future teacher, I hope to inspire my students to love the subject of history and to understand its importance in their lives.

Florida’s sandy shores and sunny skies, aptly nicknamed the “Sunshine State” in the Southeastern United States, has attracted dreamers, vacationers, and fortune seekers for generations. With over 1,300 miles of coastline and a subtropical climate year-round, it is an extremely popular destination for not only vacations but for permanent residents as well. In the early 20th century, the charm of this tropical paradise was particularly powerful, fueling a land boom that transformed Miami from a sleepy beach town into a bustling city. The 1920s saw unprecedented economic growth and cultural transformation across America; Miami was no exception. However, this era of hopefulness came to a halt in September 1926 with the arrival of the Great Miami Hurricane, a giant storm that left a path of devastation.

Before the storm

Miami’s transformation into a major urban center was swift and dramatic. Incorporated in 1896, the city experienced exponential population growth. In the summer of 1913, Carl Fisher, an investor, and other investors hired the First Clark Dredging Company of Baltimore to clear away one thousand acres of swamp and replace it with bay bottomland, or flat land. The company employed African-American laborers for the brutal task of slashing through the mangroves. They then neatly covered the shore with some bay bottom, or sand pumped up from the ocean and soil from the Everglades area. After that, rapid industrialization was driven by factors such as Henry Flagler’s railroad expansion, connecting Florida and the Florida Keys with the rest of America, something that was unheard of at the time, along with aggressive land development campaigns. Between 1900 and 1910, Miami’s population more than doubled, reaching nearly 30,000 by 1920. A newspaper ad in 1921 named Miami Beach a paradise with “practically no danger from storms.” This perception, coupled with the absence of significant hurricanes since 1910, encouraged a false sense of security among investors and residents.

Construction boomed during this period, with large hotels, exquisite casinos, and beautiful beach houses springing up to accommodate the surge of tourists and new residents. Miami’s economy thrived on tourism, especially during the winter months, when visitors flocked to the warm weather. Real estate sales reached new heights, fueled by ambitious projects like the reclamation of the Everglades and the rapid expansion of road networks for automobiles, as well as investors purchasing land and properties in anticipation of future growth and profits. Additionally, agricultural activities, like farming, thrived in the surrounding areas, contributing to the region’s economic prosperity. The passage of a constitutional amendment in 1924, prohibiting state inheritance and income taxes, further fueled investor confidence and attracted capital to the region. The city saw the construction of roads, bridges, and other transportation networks to accommodate the growing number of residents and visitors. The city also invested in improving utilities like water supply, sewage systems, and electricity. However, these improvements did not reach all residents, particularly those in marginalized communities. In addition, beneath the prosperity were structural weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Many buildings were hastily constructed, lacking proper reinforcement to withstand the force of a major hurricane. Most of the natural plants and wildlife that would have done a bit to protect from the storm was destroyed in the rapid development. The city’s infrastructure, including drainage systems and flood defenses, was not equipped to cope with the powerful storm.

 Miami’s population during the early 20th century was diverse, consisting of people from various backgrounds. The city attracted immigrants from Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as African Americans migrating from other parts of the United States. This diversity contributed to Miami’s rich cultural vibe. Racial segregation and discrimination were prevalent, with African Americans and other minority groups facing limited opportunities and social exclusion. Additionally, the rapid pace of development and urbanization often led to environmental degradation as natural habitats were cleared for construction and infrastructure projects.

Overall, Miami before the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 was a dynamic and rapidly evolving city, characterized by population growth, economic expansion, cultural diversity, and real estate speculation. While the city experienced unprecedented prosperity and development, it also grappled with social inequalities, environmental challenges, and the risks associated with rapid urbanization. These factors set the stage for the catastrophic impact of the hurricane and its aftermath on Miami and its residents. 

Unknown Storm

Reports are conflicted as to whether Miami issued warnings. Some sources state that there were some warnings in the days leading up to the event, and residents of Miami disregarded the warnings, not understanding how catastrophic an event like this could be. Other sources say there were no warnings and that people were completely unaware that this was going to happen. During this time, storm warnings were centralized in Washington, D.C., and then distributed to other offices, like the weather office in Miami, so by the time they were aware of the event and sent out any type of warning, it would’ve been too late for citizens to be prepared. If there were warnings, they probably would’ve been sent out when residents were already asleep. A smaller hurricane earlier in July had served as a wake-up call for some, prompting a degree of preparation in the days leading up to the storm if they were warned. However, these efforts were insufficient to lessen the catastrophic impact of the impending hurricane. As the category four hurricane brewed in the Atlantic, the rudimentary forecasting technology of the time struggled to accurately predict the storm’s trajectory, leading many to underestimate the potential threat. The storm’s path avoided the normal channels of Caribbean information, so the hurricane was somewhat mysterious, with only a few ships reporting its existence. 

The Hurricane comes in

In the early hours of September 18th, 1926, the full force of the Great Miami Hurricane was unleashed upon the city. With winds exceeding 150 miles per hour and a storm surge towering 11 feet above high tide, the hurricane attacked Miami, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. From South Beach to Lake Okeechobee and beyond to the Tampa Bay area and the northern Gulf Coast, no area of South Florida was spared from the storm. As the hurricane approached, the “eye” of the storm passed directly over Miami, bringing a temporary lull in the winds and rain. Many residents, unaware that the most dangerous part of the storm was yet to come, ventured outside during this brief period of calm. Many of these residents lost their lives. After the eye passed, the hurricane’s second half brought renewed fury to Miami and the surrounding areas. Powerful winds, heavy rain, and flooding caused widespread devastation, destroying buildings, homes, and infrastructure. The hurricane’s strong winds tore roofs off buildings, uprooted trees, and toppled power lines and utility poles. Debris became airborne, causing additional damage to structures and posing a significant danger to residents. The Great Miami Hurricane resulted in significant loss of life, with an official death toll reported at 372 people. However, some estimates suggest that the actual number of casualties may have been much higher, possibly reaching into the thousands. Along with that, there were 854 hospitalized. 2,000 homes were destroyed, and 3,000 more were damaged. Estimates of residents made homeless ranged from 25,000 to 47,000. Newspapers had headlines reading “Still Adding to List of Dead in Hurricane’s Wake” and highlighted how the number of deaths increased as bodies washed ashore afterwards.  The lack of preparedness and the rapid escalation of the hurricane caught both residents and weather officials off guard, worsening the loss of life and property. 

The Aftermath

In the days and weeks following the hurricane, relief and recovery efforts were launched to assist those affected by the disaster. People who promoted real estate in Miami didn’t like the publicity surrounding the disaster because it negatively impacted their businesses and the real estate industry. The Red Cross workers who were trying to come into help were initially hindered by these promoters, but donations started coming in, and they were able to start relief efforts. The hurricane left thousands of people homeless, injured, or displaced. Emergency shelters were set up to provide temporary housing and assistance to survivors. Relief agencies and volunteers worked tirelessly to provide food, water, medical care, and other essential supplies to those in need. 

Rebuilding efforts began almost immediately after the hurricane, as residents and authorities worked to repair and reconstruct damaged homes, buildings, and infrastructure. Miami was able to rebuild structurally in a few months, but financially, it would take years. Cleanup crews worked to clear debris and restore essential services. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, and debris littered the streets. Power lines were downed, water supplies were contaminated, and communication networks were severed. Businesses were destroyed, crops were ruined, and livelihoods were lost. 

In addition to the physical destruction, the hurricane showed the racial and socioeconomic disparities that were in Miami. African American neighborhoods got hit the hardest in the storm’s impact yet received disproportionately less assistance and were some of the last people to receive aid in the aftermath. They were also expected to clean up the damage caused by the storm.  

A Changed Landscape

The Great Miami Hurricane served as a wake-up call, exposing the vulnerabilities of a city built on rapid growth. After the disaster, efforts were made to strengthen building codes and improve disaster preparedness measures. Stricter regulations were put in place to ensure that buildings were better able to withstand the force of future hurricanes. This included requirements for reinforced structures, impact-resistant materials, and storm-resistant designs. The destruction caused by the hurricane prompted significant investments in infrastructure improvements. Roads, bridges, and utilities were rebuilt and reinforced to better withstand future storms. Drainage systems were also upgraded to reduce the risk of flooding during hurricanes and heavy rainfall events. The hurricane highlighted the importance of emergency preparedness and response in coastal communities. In the years following the disaster, Miami implemented comprehensive emergency management plans and established dedicated agencies and resources for disaster response and recovery. This included the development of evacuation routes, emergency shelters, and communication systems to better coordinate response efforts during hurricanes and other emergencies. The Great Miami Hurricane influenced urban planning and development policies in Miami. There was a greater emphasis on sustainable growth and resilient design principles to minimize the risk of damage from future storms. This included measures such as preserving green spaces, protecting natural habitats, and implementing smart growth strategies to reduce vulnerability to hurricanes and other environmental hazards. Even today, agencies like the U.S Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) are working to improve the Miami area’s storm surge defenses, including more infrastructure projects and financial assistance for floodproofing in homes and businesses. 

However, the economic devastation from the hurricane was extreme, triggering a downturn in the region’s fortunes. The storm’s impact reached far beyond the borders of Miami, foreshadowing the economic turmoil and social upheaval that would characterize the Great Depression. Florida, already shaken up  from the hurricane’s devastation, was ill-prepared for the subsequent economic downturn, which further worsened the suffering of its residents. In the next year, 1927, tourism was down and land buyers were defaulting on their payments. There was a small resurgence of tourism in land sales in 1928 and 1929, but it was short-lived because of the stock market crash in October of 1929. 

Conclusion

The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 stands as a defining moment in the history of Miami and South Florida. The storm’s devastating impact showed the vulnerabilities of a city built on rapid expansion and development. Yet, from the disaster emerged a stronger, more resilient community, determined to rebuild and thrive in the face of adversity. The lessons learned from the hurricane continue to shape Miami’s approach to disaster preparedness and urban development, ensuring that the city remains better equipped to withstand future storms. Even today, this storm and others influence choices made to make Miami and South Florida more safe for residents and vacationers alike. Ultimately, the story of the Great Miami Hurricane is one of resilience, adaptation, and the enduring human spirit in the face of nature’s wrath.

If you are interested in this subject, here are some suggestions for further exploration.

The Great Miami Hurricane– The History Guy. This YouTube video talks about some other things going on at this time, as well as going more in-depth on the subject.

Harry and the Hurricane- Gordon Berg. A fun book (targeted for younger readers but could be enjoyed by anyone!) that describes a seven year old’s experience during the hurricane, and is based on the author’s dad.

Citations:

“Devastation in Miami from the 1926 Hurricane.” n.d. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670726/.

Dumenil, Lynn. 1995. The Modern Temper : American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill And Wang.

New Smyrna Daily News. 1926. “1926 Great Miami Hurricane. Miami, Fl. Headline Article – Tom Malmay,” September 21, 1926. https://www.newspapers.com/article/new-smyrna-daily-news-1926-great-miami-h/2385338/.

Steinberg, Theodore. 1997. “Do-It-Yourself Deathscape: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in South Florida.” Environmental History 2 (4): 414. https://doi.org/10.2307/3985607.

“The Hurricane of 1926 | American Experience | PBS.” n.d. Www.pbs.org. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/miami-hurricane-1926/.

US Department of Commerce, NOAA. n.d. “Great Miami Hurricane of 1926.” Www.weather.gov. https://www.weather.gov/mfl/miami_hurricane.

———. n.d. “NWS WFO/NHC Miami, FL History Page.” Www.weather.gov. Accessed May 2, 2024. https://www.weather.gov/mfl/floridahistorypage#Richard_Gray.

Jones, Marian Moser. “Tempest in the Forbidden City: Racism, Violence, and Vulnerability in the 1926 Miami Hurricane.” Journal of Policy History 26, no. 3 (June 9, 2014): 384–405. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0898030614000177.

1. https://www.mdpls.org/dc-blog-twentytwo-july ︎
2. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2021/12/12/what-led-boom-and-bust-florida-real-estate-1920-s/8883053002/ ︎
3. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/miami-hurricane-1926/ ︎
4. https://genealogytrails.com/fla/miamidade/hurricaneof1926.html ︎
5. https://miamihistorychannel.com/south-florida-hurricanes-part-1/ ︎
6. https://www.mdpls.org/dc-blog-twentytwo-july ︎
7. https://www.mdpls.org/dc-blog-twentytwo-july ︎
8. https://www.weather.gov/images/mfl/history/marker.jpg ︎
9. https://www.mdpls.org/dc-blog-twentytwo-july ︎

Crowds of presumably strikers marching from Scotland to London during the 1926 General Strike. (Getty Images)

Religion: Modernism vs Conservativism

The 1920s was a decade where the fight in religion between embracing modernism or keeping the old ways of thought was heating up. As people witnessed and learned about the ungodly carnage of WWI and science disproved more and more religious beliefs that were thought to be facts in the 1920s, religion was becoming less appealing. Many religious leaders especially Church leaders had to make a choice of whether to embrace modernity to try and attract more people or keep the old ways as to not go against their religious beliefs. This was no different during the 1926 General Strike that became a test for some Church leaders on how willing they were to embrace modernism. ¹.

This fight in Churches between embracing modernism or keeping the old ways was perfectly shown during the 1926 General Strike. They could either support the General Strike enacted by the Trade Unions Congress in sympathy for the miners struggle in securing a better wage or take the traditional side of the government. During the strike there were church leaders on both sides. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest religious authority in the UK, bar the Monarch, issued an appeal on the 6th day of the strike that touched on the issues that faced the miners, called for everyone to come together and negotiate an end to the strike that would benefit everyone, and even indirectly criticized the government and the Coal companies when talking about selfishness.² On that same day Cardinal Bourne, a British Roman Catholic Cardinal, declared that participation in the general strike was a sin because they were going against the government and causing the discomfort of so many.³ The 1920s and the General Strike would see many sort of religious fights between people like the Cardinal and people like the Archbishop. At the end of the day though, the Archbishop’s sympathetic argument fell on deaf ears within in the government, but was welcomed by the masses who were striking. The goal of a wider audience was achieved by the Archbishop but at the cost of angering the government who would eventually reign victorious over the miners.

Conformity, the 1920s, and the Red Scare

Although a lot of change did occur in the decades before the 1920s and some in the 1920s itself, this change was scary for many. One of the changes which really frightened people, especially Conservatives, was organized labor. By 1919 it had started to become increasingly militant, unified, and popular across the world. Conservatives decided to curtail this they would tie organized labor to the Revolution that occured in the Russian and proclaim organized labor went against their countries “values”.⁴ Despite occurring almost seven years after the beginning of the Red Scare, it featured very prominently in the Government propaganda used during the strike. All newspapers, fliers, radio broadcasts, etc that were associated with the government would constantly warn of the strikers associations with Communism and the threat that posed. For example, in an article in the British Gazette, the government run newspaper, titled “Fascism or Communism it was written how even if a majority of the strikers didn’t have intentions of overthrowing the freely democratically elected government in favor of a totalitarian Communist government, just the act of their participation in it means they still support the overthrowing of the government.⁵ Even before the strike more radical members of the Labor Party were purged under the guise of the Red Scare in attempt to distance themselves from Communism.⁶ The Red Scare was used to show the strikers are different from the regular British people and don’t have the same “values” as to prevent them from sympathizing with, joining, and supporting organized labor. The same practices were used all throughout the 1920s by governments and business to crush organized labor and any strikes they may enact.

Embed from Getty Images

Strikers demonstrating in the street on the 10 May, 1926. (Getty Images)

1. Lynn, Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, (New York, NY: Hill and Wan, 1995), 169-171 ︎
2. Randall Davidson, “Sermon by Archbishop of Canterbury”, (London, UK: BBC, 9 May, 1926). ︎
3. Francis Bourne, “News Items of General Situations”, (London, UK: BBC, 9, May, 1926) ︎
4. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 218-22 ︎
5. Sir Edward Grey, “Viscount Grey on the Real Issue. The Alternative to Parliamentary Government. Fascism or Communism”, (London, UK: The British Gazette, 10 May, 1926). ︎
6. John Foster, “Imperialism and The Labor Aristocracy”, in The General Strike 1926, ed. Jeffery Skelley, (London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), 40.
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