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During an epoch marked by a transformative shift in societal attitudes toward aquatic activities, this volume features 75 articles and 100 images of sports involving water and ice—swimming, boating, ice skating and sledding—all written by women.

As the articles attest, most women in the 19th century did not know how to swim. Several drowning tragedies, in which women were the most frequent victims, led to a surge of interest in women learning to swim to build their confidence in the water, preserve their lives when necessary, as well as for enjoyment and exercise.

Women’s fashions were a major culprit in drownings. When a boat capsized cumbersome layers of clothing weighed women down and doomed their struggle to remain above water. Even swimwear was voluminous, usually covering women from neck to toe, rendering casual sea bathing hazardous. During this era bathing suits began their slow scandalous evolution, revealing more skin and feminine contours than ever before, but still quite modest when compared to the revealing beachwear of subsequent generations. Several articles and illustrations of swimwear can be found in “What to Wear,” the fashion volume of the Sports She Wrote series.

An early advocate promoting women’s entry into the aquatic realm was Kate Bennett, who wrote extensively on the subject and was featured in several articles. She staged swimming exhibitions in natatoriums, generally restricted to an audience of women only, and a variety of strokes and diving techniques were demonstrated for an audience unfamiliar with swimming pools. One of her routines included jumping into the pool fully clothed, as a woman would be in a shipwreck, and removing her skirts and shoes while in the water to help her remain afloat.

She was a pioneer who taught hundreds of women to swim and was a vocal proponent for so-called “public baths” in New York, which were not baths in the modern sense but were U-shaped docks abutting the shoreline with dressing rooms on the deck, providing a safe enclosed swimming space. These were particularly useful for working women who could not afford access to indoor natatoriums. Both men and women used these public baths, almost always at alternate times, very seldom together. An illustration of these baths is presented at the beginning of the volume. Controversial mixed bathing was commonplace on some beaches, while others remained segregated until the twentieth century.

Among the most celebrated woman to advocate women learning to swim was the enigmatic Clara Beckwith, who adopted the last name of a prominent swimming family, and invented a false history of their common heritage, although she was not a part of the Beckwith clan and merely adopted the name for public relations purposes.

Nevertheless, Clara’s remarkable aquatic feats were genuine, as she outlasted men and women in numerous endurance swimming contests in the 1890s. Clara’s 1893 book on learning to swim is included in this collection.

Among the 27 swimming articles are three written by water-loving actresses published in the New York World in July 1897: Edna Wallace Hopper, Della Fox, and Madge Lessing.  All are related to swimming but also include descriptions of seaside life at the resorts in Long Island, Long Branch and Atlantic City.

The Boating section of this volume begins with four articles about heroine Ida Lewis, a courageous lighthouse operator, who famously saved lives on several occasions thanks to her skill in handling a rowboat. Thirty articles on boating follow, including rowing, yachting, canoeing, punting and the varied forms of watercraft that defined the 19th-century maritime experience.

The modern concept of a “yacht” is an opulent vessel for the ultra-wealthy. In the 19th century it usually referred to a sailboat, which varied in size from a small boat piloted by a single person to a large boat accommodating many passengers. “America’s Cup” is a yacht race that was first held in 1851. This volume also includes articles describing deadly shipwrecks and harrowing stories penned by the women who survived them.

Rowing was considered excellent exercise as well as a mode of transportation. Rowing machines were invented in the 19th century and were used by men and women. Students at Smith, Wellesley and other women’s colleges joined crews that rowed sedately on lakes and were more focused on proper form and technique rather than racing. A woman’s rowing club, the Zlacs, was formed in San Diego in 1892, both for pleasure and lifesaving purposes, and remains in existence today.

Women reporters not only wrote articles about women on the water, but also about men’s rowing pursuits, a common form of recreation and a spectator sport attracting huge crowds. Edith Sessions Tupper describes the Boat Clubs of Chicago in 1888, and Evelyn Burnblum experiences the famous Oxford “Eights” rowing races in England in 1895.

Ice skating was both a popular pastime and an opportunity to perform wondrous athletic feats. Figure skating involved literally skating figures etched into the ice—figure eights and other designs. The social aspects of ice skating permitted men and women to intermingle and lock arms in public without an outcry about immorality. Women’s winterwear was a main feature of most articles on skating. Prevailing fashions were altered to permit modern freedom of movement, but long skirts, fur coats, elaborate hats, gloves and hand muffs seemed as important as the steel blades and graceful movements of the activity. As with swimwear, several ice skating articles primarily focused on women’s skating fashions are located in the “What to Wear” volume of Sports She Wrote.

This volume contains four articles about ice skating and one fiction story about ice hockey. The invention of artificial ice led to construction of indoor rinks in the 19th century and the expansion of skating sports year-round sheltered from inclement weather.

Sledding and other snow sports, prevalent when weather permitted, are featured in eight articles. From toboggans hurtling down specially contoured runways to the daring sport of downhill sledding on lightweight skeletons, the snowy landscape was alive with speed and winter enjoyment.

Tobogganing was a shared social participation sport in which men and women were often packed together on a single board. The more dangerous competitive sledding varieties were primarily engaged in by men. Alice Crossette Hall wrote a vivid account of the birth of the new sledding sports in Switzerland which later became the most thrilling and dangerous events in the Winter Olympics.

Snowshoeing and skiing as we know it today were not common among women, although some, particularly those who grew up with the practice in Norway, enjoyed winter slopes. Women skied in various parts of the country, including California, but the articles about them could not be confirmed as being written by women.

An exception is the following excerpt from the Sports She Wrote volume entitled “Diana’s Outdoor Sports” quoting her weekly “Athletic Woman” column published in The Philadelphia Inquirer April 23, 1899: “They say that in Norway the life of the women has lately been entirely revolutionized by the new order of muscular feeling which the use of the ski or long snowshoes as a sport for both sexes has made the women acquainted. Fifteen years ago the Norwegian women were even more than the women of other lands votaries of the old fashioned ideal of femininity, the ‘domestic angel,’ the gentle and ‘refining influences’ sort of thing. Now these sedentary, fireside tabby cats of Norway have been trained by the snowshoes into lithe, audacious creatures, for whom no nights are too dark nor height too giddy, and who are not only saying good-bye to the traditional pallor and delicacy of constitution, but actually taking the lead in every educational and social reform.”

This “Water and Ice” volume explores untold stories of women who defied convention to make a splash—quite literally—in the vibrant world of aquatic and winter sports. Each article unveils a unique facet of this bygone era, reminding readers that the spirit of adventure knows no bounds, whether surrounded by water or under the icy embrace of winter.

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