INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME
THE GREATEST OF THEIR GENERATION The General Slocum steamship disaster in 1904, the tragedy that changed swimming history, had an impact on two of the greatest swimming heroes of all time, Johnny Weissmuller and Charles Robert Drew. BY BRUCE WIGO
A
ll historians relish finding coincidences of seemingly unconnected events that explain historical outcomes. One of these coincidences occurred when two of swimming’s greatest heroes were born on consecutive days in June of 1904.
JOHNNY WEISSMULLER
The first hero of this story is well known: Johann “Johnny” Peter Weissmuller. He was born on June 2, 1904, to German-speaking parents living in Romania. It was less than two weeks before the infamous General Slocum steamship disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people—mostly women and children—from a German-American church group in New York City’s East River. The Slocum disaster made international news, especially in Germanspeaking regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When the Weissmullers immigrated to America in 1907, his parents made a point to teach him swimming at Fullerton Beach on Lake Michigan. At the age of 11, he joined the Northside YMCA, where he showed promise not only as a swimmer, but in running and high jumping. But his future as an athlete appeared to end when his alcoholic father left the family. Forced to leave school after the eighth grade to support his little brother and mom, he went to work, delivering packages for a church supply company and hawking produce from a cart. “You know, your guts get so mad when you try to fight poverty,” Weissmuller recalled. “I told myself, ‘I’m going to get out of this
> Front page news from the New York World (June 15, 1904): General Slocum disaster [PHOTO PROVIDED BY INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME]
neighborhood, if only because he’s got a quarter and I haven’t.’” But he still found time to swim, and it was while working as a bellhop and elevator operator at the Plaza Hotel in 1920 that Johnny’s reputation as a young swimmer earned him a tryout with
> PICTURED ABOVE (From left) Johnny Weissmuller at the Molitor Pool, Paris; and Charles R. Drew at the Francis Pool, Washington, D.C. (circa 1931). [PHOTO BY ISHOF/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH] CONTINUED ON 26 >> APRIL 2021
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