Charlotte Epstein

Charlotte "Eppie" Epstein was known as "Mother of Women's Swimming in America" after she founded the Women's Swimming Association and coached the Women's Olympic Swimming Team in the 1920s.

Career

Epstein was born in 1884 in New York City, and was working as a stenographer when in 1917 she, together with her fellow workers, decided that swimming would be a good way to get exercise.

She went on to found the Women's Swimming Association (WSA) in 1920, and became famous for promoting the health benefits of swimming as exercise. This was at a time when women were not viewed as athletic, and exercise was not considered beneficial to female health.

Epstein coached the Women's Olympic Swimming Team in the 1920s. She was able to guide many of the WSA members to victory. Through her coaching, swimmers under her management, known as "Eppie's Swimmers," won 30 national championships, while setting 52 world records.

She battled for women’s suffrage, staging “suffrage swim races” with her teammates, as well as battling for emancipation in women’s sports campaigning for bathing suit reform, distance swims, and other competitive events. Eppie, too, served as the team leader for Olympian Gertrude Ederle, who learned to swim at Eppie’s Women’s Swimming Association, and the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, smashing the men’s time by over two hours.

She served as manager of the U.S. Women's Olympic Swimming Team for the 1920, 1924, and 1928 Olympic Games, and became well known as a spokesperson for female athletes. However, in 1936 she boycotted the Olympics in Berlin in protest over Nazi policies.

She died shortly after, in 1938.

See also

• List of select Jewish coaches

External links

• Charlotte Epstein

Persondata
Name	Epstein, Charlotte
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1884
Place of birth
Date of death	1938
Place of death