A YWCA Life Saving Unit assembles for service at the Golden Gate in San Francisco in 1920, representing one of the first women’s lifesaving corps to organize on the Pacific Coast. The women were part of a larger movement to reduce the nation’s drowning rate.
Drowning rates were high in America in the early 20th century, accounting for about 10,000 deaths annually. Most people did not know how to swim, ferry accidents were common, and life preservers were rare. Women were especially vulnerable if they went overboard, as their clothing was heavy and often covered their faces and arms once submerged.
As a marine journalist in Providence, Rhode Island, Wilbert E. Longfellow reported on waterfront drownings frequently. When the triple-deck sidewheel passenger steamboat PS General Slocum caught fire and sank in New York in 1904, resulting in more than 1,000 deaths, Longfellow decided to “do something about waterfront drownings instead of writing about them.”
Longfellow began working with the U.S. Volunteer Lifesaving Corps in Rhode Island and New York to standardize rescue methods and organize training for the YMCA, YWCA and Boy Scouts. He also advocated for teaching women to swim and to become lifesavers, making a point to include female lifesavers at VLSC exhibitions.
In 1909, Longfellow asked female lifeguard Adeline Trapp to compete in a 9-mile race through Hell Gate in New York wearing a man’s suit. His goal was to demonstrate what women swimmers were capable of when they were not encumbered by wet bloomer suits, which could weigh nearly 30 pounds when soaked. Trapp successfully completed the race, outdistancing 15 male swimmers.
Eager to expand his efforts outside the Northeast, Longfellow urged the American Red Cross to establish a nationwide program dedicated to lifesaving and water safety. The Red Cross Life Saving Corps was established in 1914.
At first, the Red Cross did not allow women to enroll in its lifeguard certification program, believing they could not perform the required duties and that male swimmers would not take the program seriously if women were admitted. In response, Longfellow established the World’s Life-Saving Alliance for Women, an independent but parallel organization that mirrored the Red Cross training program. Through the Alliance, he hoped to prove that women were fully capable of lifesaving while training female lifeguards who would eventually be accepted into the Red Cross Life Saving Corps. In 1914, a woman in Maryland became the first recipient of a World’s Life Saving Alliance lifesaving certificate, the same year the Red Cross Life Saving Corps began issuing certificates to men.
The Red Cross finally began accepting women into the lifesaving corps in May 1920. As more Americans became qualified in lifesaving, the national drowning rate declined significantly, from 10.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 1914 to 5.2 per 100,000 in 1947. By that time, the Red Cross had qualified 100,000 water safety instructors and issued 4.5 million swimming and lifesaving certificates.
This article was originally published in the September 2026 issue.
