Aquadynamics and the Athletocracy: Jennie Fletcher and the British Women's 4 x 100 metre Freestyle Relay Team at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games

dc.contributor.authorWilliams, Jeanen
dc.date.accessioned2012-07-16T08:36:26Z
dc.date.available2012-07-16T08:36:26Z
dc.date.issued2012-06
dc.description.abstractThis article considers the part played by aquadynamics, or a concern for the technical properties of swimming costumes, in the career of Jennie Fletcher (1890–1968) who won Britain’s first individual Olympic female swimming medal (bronze) at the Stockholm Olympic Games in 1912 and contributed to the first women’s team gold in the 4 × 100 metre Freestyle Relay. Her light silk one-piece racing swimsuit represented a new kind of modernity: the revealed sporting body enabled competitive principles, rather than modesty, to define the appearance of the female swimmer. The article also examines the place of the working-class competitor in our understanding of the early Games, an ‘athletocracy’ where performance, not background, enabled individuals to compete. The work therefore also explores the relevance of Fletcher’s birthplace, Leicester, in the development of amateur and professional swimming and in the production of swmming costumes for both sport and leisure.en
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research has been developed with the support of a De Montfort University Research Investment Fund grant for 2011–12 to look at the relationship between sport and fashion, particularly in the county of Leicestershire. .en
dc.explorer.multimediaNoen
dc.identifier.citationWilliams, J. (2012) Aquadynamics and the Athletocracy: Jennie Fletcher and the British Women's 4 x 100 metre Freestyle Relay Team at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games. Costume, 46 (2), pp. 145-164en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1179/0590887612Z.0000000006
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2086/6369
dc.peerreviewedYesen
dc.publisherManey Publishingen
dc.ref2014.selected1366105083_9710681003524_30_3
dc.researchgroupInternational Centre for Sports History and Cultureen
dc.subjectBritish women Olympiansen
dc.subjectracing swimsuitsen
dc.subjectsilken
dc.subjectLeicesteren
dc.subjectJennie Fletcheren
dc.subject1912en
dc.subjectStockholmen
dc.titleAquadynamics and the Athletocracy: Jennie Fletcher and the British Women's 4 x 100 metre Freestyle Relay Team at the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Gamesen
dc.typeArticleen

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