A singularly entertaining and wonderfully complex historical study of women in water

Katarina Tornborg
Independent scholar

Gretchen Walsh, Sarah Sjöström, the US Artistic swimming team that won silver in the Paris Olympics in 2024 (the Chinese team secured gold: in Tokyo in 2021 it was the Russians). Not to mention 13 year old Chinese wonder girl Yu Zidi, who won gold in the 200 meter medley in Chinas national championship, and, sort of by the way, beat the the Asian record set in the Olympics in London 2012 which is before she herself was born.

What do these people have in common apart from the fact that they are women?

They represent different aspects of the historical difficulties and obstacles women had to overcome in order to claim the right to learn to swim, and not only that, but also to use their bodily strength in competitions and championships.

Their history is the subject matter of Vicki Valosik’s book Swimming Pretty, The untold story of women in water.

Vicki Valosik teaches writing at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and she is also a competitive synchronized/artistic swimmer. The need for her to understand the history behind her own passion, and thereby to grasp what it means and has meant to be a woman and a swimmer, were the driving forces behind this huge undertaking, The scholar and the practitioner unite in this singularly entertaining and well written book outlining the cultural, historical and religious beliefs that hindered women from participating in sports in general and swimming in particular. So what were the challenges women had to overcome?

In order to understand that, one has to start at the beginning, and that is what Valosik does. The book can roughly be divided into two parts. The first deals with the history of European swimming in general, dating back about two thousand years to ancient Greece and The Roman Empire. The second part concentrates on how many women took the plunge and learned to swim by the mid19th century, and their intensified battle for recognition in the field of sports. The history of women (and to a specific extent, men) and water is a story of exclusion, forgetfulness and reclaiming.

If she sinks, then obviously she’s not guilty because of the inherently holy properties of water. Heaven welcomes her soul. Unfortunately, she is is no longer in a position to enjoy the benefit of being alive. If, on the other hand, she floats, then the Devil is at work

The Roman baths were famous throughout the Empire, and many cities built their own thermae. These public baths were open to all, rich and poor, free and slaves. It seems that the Romans were passionate about water and water sports. Women used the baths at different times than men, or had their own sections in the bathhouses. The baths were places where people socialized, made business deals, engaged in all sorts of activities like fantastic open air aquatic spectacles and pageants and enacting famous sea battles (in a slightly smaller format), or depicting mythological scenes in which women swam important parts. Women and men could swim in Ancient Rome and Greece. In fact, throughout the ages, people who lived near water – lakes, rivers, the sea – had to be able to at least stay afloat and swim to a certain degree in order to save lives, to move oneself and one’s belongings in case of emergency. But at a certain point swimming and water entertainments declined and more or less disasppeard from the public conciousness.

So, what happened? The Roman Empire fell in 476. Economic instability, corruption, high taxes and a high inflation were some of the internal reasons.The Barbarians relentless attacks finalized the cause of events. Rising Christianity presented a new ideal of poverty and humility and the new religion spread fast. Of the three religions, Christianity is the least concerned about cleanliness and ritual washing. Baths were no longer as important, even if they were still in use. Rome’s well-tended public baths and the gardens with water fountains deteriorated and fell into oblivion. The Christians could tolerate baths as long as they were functional and devoid of real pleasure, which affected people’s attitudes towards water. In The Middle Ages the art of swimming was largely lost, not to reappear roughly until the 18th century. In the meantime, the church advised on using water discriminately – water was the medium through which people were baptized into the faith of God, and therefore it should be treated with respect and not overly enthusiastically. It is said of Saint Anthony that he never washed his feet.[1] The cult of filth (holiness through dirtiness) was widespread in Christian communities. (A wider discussion of how dirt purified the soul and filth was a humbling agent is found in The Anatomy of Disgust by William Ian Miller.[2])

The Black Death, the bubonic plague that hit Europe in 1346 killing about 25 million people, contributed to the fear of water – the belief being that water spread disease. Then there was the witch-hunting hysteria. In 1487 two Dominican inquisitors, Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer wrote and published the Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches, a manual for exposing (mostly) women who were believed to have relations of an intimate character with the Devil or had committed other crimes against the normal. The book offered all kinds of tests aiming to reveal the secrets and devices of witches. The most spectacular examination was a real case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t, the water test. In short it works as follows: A suspect is found and brought in for questioning. She has a chance to prove herself not guilty by undergoing the water test. Her hands and feet are bound, and she is thrown into a river, a lake or a deep enough pond. If she sinks, then obviously she’s not guilty because of the inherently holy properties of water. Heaven welcomes her soul. Unfortunately, she is is no longer in a position to enjoy the benefit of being alive. If, on the other hand, she floats, then the Devil is at work. The water will not accept her soul, therefore she is guilty and will hang or be burned at the stake. Neither prospect is alluring. The fear of witches was very real, and the terror of the plague was also very real, driving thousands of people from their homes. A combination of fears will result in extreme measures.

But something was brewing and there was a modest awakening interest in swimming in the mid16th century when Cambridge theologian Everard Digby (1549-1592) published his book De Arte Natandi, (The Art of Swimming) in 1587. Digby had hopes that his work would renew the interest in swimming as an art, not merely as a mechanic series of movements. Sadly, people did not take much interest in Digbys treatise. There was a translation into English some years later by a man named Middleton, but nothing important really happened until the Frenchman Melchisédech Thévenot translated the book into French in 1696, L’arte de Nager, and more or less claimed it as his own work. Thévenot added new movements and improvements to Digby’s original, and L’Arte de Nager was translated into German, Spanish, Italian, and – back to English. Poor Digby, he was either 1,000 years too late or about 200 years early. Still, his work paved the way to the renaissance interest in classical practices and so inspired a whole new preoccupation with bodily movement and swimming, setting modern standards for new manly ideals.

Thévenot’s work on swimming inspired Benjamin Franklin (who learned to swim a s small boy) to perform the different “scientific” water tricks he showed off in London and the Thames in 1726, to the awe of his onlookers. Franklin’s compiled correspondence on swimming was published as The Art of Swimming, Made Safe, Easy, Pleasant and Healthfulin 1819, with Franklin as the author 30 years after his death. Copyright wasn’t really a big deal back then.

The little booklet was widely distributed and contributed to a new understanding of what swimming could be.

In the 18th century bathing was à la mode. Resorts and spas were established as middle class people generally had more leisure time and also more money to spend on vacations. Salt water was considered healthy, and doctors recommended their patients to take a cure of saltwater to heal ailments like scrofula (King’s Evil, tuberculosis in the lymph nodes). Brighton in England and Deauville in France were fashionable water holes. Men swam in the sea. Women splashed about in the water well hidden by so called bathing machines, horse drawn cubicles on wheels that shielded girls and women from prying eyes while they undressed to take a dip. Of course there were no bathing suits as yet, women had to make do in their shifts which obviously hindered any attempt at more serious exercise.

Drowning posed a real threat and was always present for both men and women when they were in the vicinity of water. A woman who couldn’t swim and fell into deep water had few chances of surviving because of the encumbering volume and weight of her clothes. Men could rarely swim. Accidents were many, but as Benjamin Franklin stated, they could be avoided if more people knew how to swim.

The modern history of swimming – as Valosik notes – is a history of inclusion, exclusion, money and class.

In the 19th century, the need for professional swimming instructors grew, both by the sea and in the new fashionable bathhouses that were being built in the cities. Usually the instructors, or Swimming Professors as they were called, were working class men who had learned to swim and then taught the art to boys and men for a fee. Supply and demand. One of these Professors, Frederick Beckwith, would make history through his daughter Agnes. He had taught his wife, son and daughters to swim and when the demand for teaching women to swim became more articulate, there were openings for these working class women to become, not professors, but Swimming Mistresses. Many swimming families were likewise occupied, and swimming became safe for women, supervised as they were by other women.

Competitions were being held. Prizes were won. Competitions were off limits for the ladies who instead showed their acrobatic water skills in the intervals. But women had begun to learn and some were extremely proficient.

In 1875 it was announced that Beckwith’s daughter Agnes, aged 14, would swim from London to Greenwich, a distance of five miles. She “set out on a brisk sideways stroke” and managed the distance in one hour and seven minutes .A couple of months later she swam 20 miles on the Thames which would stand as she women’s long-distance record until 1905.

 “They look like cupcakes, but are tough cookies.”

In 1886, when the Amateur Swimming Association was established, things radically changed. The competitive threat from professional swimming professors and their female family members became too much for the upper classes and they were banned from all competitions and thereby lost most of their income. Agnes Beckwith who had been hailed as a water star athlete was now being criticized for being unwomanly and overstepping her natural borders. She who wanted to swim across the English Channel was forcefully discouraged from such an unwomanly feat. The exclusion was now a hard fact. So here we are, soon at the turn of the century with a generation of young swimmers, male and female, who no longer could compete for cash prizes. What did they do? They went into show business and were a huge success. This was the beginnings of the era of water tank shows with exhibitions of endurance, perseverance and breathtaking daring. Aquatic performers, men and women of extraordinary aquatic competence, were now paid artists who were holding their breaths under water for two minutes, impresarios and directors of the shows urged the public to take the time. There were Daring Houdini-feats under water, performers ate, read books, and “went to sleep” under water. Water tanks were decorated as underwater landscapes featuring mermaids with flowing hair reclining on the “seabed”, with “fishermen” showing their agile movements in different stunts. On both sides of the Atlantic they were in enormous demand. If England had Agnes Beckwith, the US had Lurline, the Water Queen who became the highest paid artist of her time. Circus owners, showbiz impresarios, Vaudeville theatres, they all wanted the show girls with their long hair and their fancy costumes. It was new, it was wonderful and heartbreaking. Artists were performing several times a day, some were richly rewarded, others scarcely made a living.

Vicki Valosik diligently evokes the hopes, the ambitions and the strength of the young women who, while they were not allowed to swim competitively, found other ways to attain excellence in an era of frantic experimenting in a show business that changed the vaudeville stages into showcases in glass and metal, that sometimes burst under the enormous pressure, hurting performers and scaring the audience. The acts became increasingly daring. Not only breath-holding or mermaid-like movements in tanks, but also diving from great heights into the tanks. Burst ear drums, infections, broken limbs, many performers suffered in their quest for brilliance in this pioneering field.

And here is the heart of the matter. Valosik’s focus shifts to America, to the second part of the story with the American fight for women’s right to learn to swim to save lives, for their right to compete on equal terms and become members of teams, swimming or diving.

One of the starting points was a day outing on the General Slocum, an excursion steamer that carried 1,360 passengers, mostly women and children, when disaster struck. The steamer caught fire and almost exploded. 1,021 people died because practically no one could swim. In the years that followed, enormous efforts were made to organize and carry out swimming instructions all over the country. One name: Commodore Longfellow. He was a journalist who instead of reporting on the disasters, the accidental drownings and the body count, decided to do something about it in practical way, and so he did. He learned to swim and became an important leader of the US Volunteer Life Saving Corps (VLSC) and worked hard to introduce life saving techniques and swimming all over the country. Female lifesavers were an important part of the nationwide education.

Women wanted more, They wanted to compete, they wanted to swim fast and to win. They made the Olympic teams, and men were not thrilled. There was a backlash. Women were meant to be beautiful and any exertion that showed was unwomanly and ugly. It simply wasn’t right for women to be sweaty or dishevelled. Those who deemed it unfit for women to exert themselves won. In schools, colleges and universities emphasis was on fostering “cooperation, loyalty and good sportsmanship”. Not competition that focused on winning. To be a member of a team, not a medal-hungry individual. Girls were limited to “play days” with games in arbitrarily put together teams. No exertion. No sweat, all nice and friendly.

And then came Esther Williams. Besides giving Valosik the title for her book, she also was the beginning of a new era that combined show business and Hollywood glamour with hard core swimming in countless water-themed films with elaborate, daring and intricate ballet scenes. Here’s a quote:

Theatre impresario Billy Rose was interested in giving the young, beautiful swimmer a chance to be a part of his Aquacade. She obviously was a strong swimmer, but could she swim pretty?

“Mr. Rose, if you’re not strong enough to swim fast, you’re probably not strong enough to swim pretty”. Said Esther and proved every syllable true.

The ballet-formations of swimmers – Aquabelles and Aquabeaux, women and men in Mr. Rose’s Aquacade shows, were enormously important for what was to become synchronized swimming. Alongside the shows, educators in schools and colleges, notably the swimmer and teacher Kathleen Curtis, had been practicing and teaching stunts in the water since the 20’s. Stunts can be described as combinations of strokes with different leg and arm positions that go back to the time of Everard Digby and Benjamin Franklin. Kathleen Curtis made students work hard for effortless grace and poise in the water.

When girls couldn’t get a competitive-oriented swimming education, they thad to take a another route. They could do anything as long as they didn’t challenge the norms and expectations that were associated with their gender and accepted the parts they were assigned to play. Beauty and ease became the hallmark of the specifically American sport that came to be known as synchronized swimming.

In 1984, synchronized swimming was admitted into the Olympic Games family. The graceful movements of a group of super coordinated glamorous looking female swimmers belied the hard work. Synchronized swimming is in fact one of the Games’ toughest athletic performances. It has been compared to ballet, gymnastics and ice skating. They are related in that all the hard work doesn’t show on the athletes faces. No distorted features due to efforts, no sweat, beautiful costumes and absolute control. One specific and challenging difference between the four athletic branches, is that the team members in synchronized swimming must be able to hold their breath under water for a long period of time.

 “They look like cupcakes, but are tough cookies.”

In 2017 synchronized swimming changed names to artistic swimming which raised questions among the swimmers themselves. “Synchronized” was well established as an apt description of what was actually going on between the athletes. On the one hand, formations and stunts coordinated in a specific rhythm with swimmers being submerged and within dangerous inches from one another. On the other hand, the strong links to the world of show business, the Vaudevilles and the aquatic Follies with the spectacular feats, the seemingly easy and light movements and the often dangerous challenges of their art. Billy Rose’s Aquacade. Esther Williams graceful and strong swimming and diving. In one of her high dives, she wore an elaborate crown on her head. Too late did she realize that this headgear probably would break her neck. It did break three neck vertebrae, and she had to keep still and in a cast for months. She recovered.

Now girls around the globe have practically been born by the poolside and have honed their skills form an early age, the ultimate goal being the Olympic Games. Countless hours of hard training in and out of water individually and in teamwork will in the best case scenario result in a highly competitive act that lasts roughly about 14 minutes. I keep thinking of all these hours. All the hard work for such a short, giddying moment.

And that reminds me of something completely different: A movie from 1964 that has haunted me since I’ve read Vicki Valosis book. Perhaps it has to do with sacrifice, perhaps not. There is a strange scene in “Alphaville”, the 1964 movie by Jean Luc Goddard. The film is a technodystopia about a city built on total rationality and void of the personal and emotional. Eddie Constantine stars as the hard core agent Lemmy Caution who travels to Alphaville on a mission to find a missing agent. His orders are also to destroy the citys governing force, the computer Alpha 6 and to kill it’s constructor, professor von Braun. Lemmy Caution meets Natascha von Braun, (Anna Karina) the professor’s daughter, and she takes him to a en elegant building where there is a swimming pool. Prominent guests are gathered around small tables at the pool sides, talking and drinking cocktails. A lineup of pretty girls in bathing suits are preparing themselves at the poolside.

At the opposite end men in white shirts are defending their dissident ideas, thoughts and actions. They are to be executed.

After having defended themselves, the men are shot and fall into the pool, one after another. The girls on the opposite side gracefully dive in, and in synchronized patterns and artful movements are swimming to retrieve the men, one at a time.

This is very disturbing. Obviously because of Godard’s use of synchronized swimmers as a death squad. It evokes Orwell and Huxley in the misleading signals. Beauty, entertainment and death rolled into one.

 In 1964 the sport of synchronized swimming was developing rapidly across the world. A century of struggle for recognition seemed to be over. Is that why? Didn’t Goddard like synchro or did he recognize unlikely/nasty possibilities for the future in this film about the future?

Wherever Goddard got the idea of using sychro in his film from, in my mind this scene becomes a kind of weird comment on the struggles women have had to be allowed into the pools and the chlorine thick atmosphere of competitive swimming. No acceptance without dirty work. No beauty without the beast.

Of course, when I watched Alphaville as a teenager in the mid 60s I didn’t reflect on his connection between swimming and death. I didn’t know much about Goddard. I had never heard of synchronized swimming. I thought that Ester Williams was pretty but boring, But I do know that that scene was haunting. I had to watch the movie three times and still it made no sense. However, after having read Vicky Valosis book a pattern seems to emerge. What the pattern means I still have to figure out. Go see the film yourselves!

For synchro/artistic lovers this book is a must read. Wonderfully complex and interesting for readers who love the sport and want to know more about its origins. For readers who perhaps are not so much into synchro itself, this well researched book offers yet another aspect of what empowerment means to girls and women in a world that has demanded subservience – with the exceptions to the rule of which the existence of synchronized/artistic swimming in many countries around the globe is proof – in China, Russia, USA, Spain, Japan, Italy, Canada, France, Australia, Mexico, Egypt, Great Britain, Netherlands, Greece, Israel, Ukraine, Austria, New Zealand and South Korea. To name but a few.

Copyright © Katarina Tornborg 2026

[1] Elisabeth Archibald, Bathing, Beauty and Christianity in the Middle Ages. Insights, Volume 5 2012. Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University. (Retrieved 2026-01-03)

[2] William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust. Harvard University Press 1997. Chapter 7, “Warriors, Saints, and Delicacy”.