‘Swimming Pretty’ author event set Aug. 11

Author Vicki Valosik will sign her new book, "Swimming Pretty: The Untold Story of Women in Water," from 1 to 3 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 11, at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach.

“If you’re not strong enough to swim fast, you’re probably not strong enough to swim ‘pretty,’” said a young Esther Williams to theater impresario Billy Rose. Since the 19th century, tensions between beauty and strength, aesthetics and athleticism have both impeded and propelled the careers of female swimmers, none more so than synchronized swimmers, for whom Williams is often considered godmother.

In this revelatory history of how women found synchronicity – and power – in water, Valosik traces a century of aquatic performance from vaudeville to the Olympic arena. She brings to life the colorful cast of characters whose “pretty swimming” laid the groundwork for an altogether new sport and forever changed women’s relationships with water. Williams, who became a Hollywood sensation for her splashy aquamusicals, was just one in a long, bedazzled line of swimmers who began their careers as athletes but found greater opportunity, and often social acceptance, in the world of show business.

Demonstrating their fancy feats in aquariums and water tanks rolled onto music hall stages, these women stunned Victorian audiences with their physical dexterity and defied society’s rigid expectations of what was proper and possible for their sex. They ushered in sensible swimwear, and influenced lifesaving and physical education programs, helping to drop national drowning rates and paving the way for new generations of female athletes. When a Chicago physical educator matched their aquatic movements to music in the 1920s, young girls flocked to take part in synchronized swimming. But despite overwhelming love from audiences and the Olympic ambitions of its practitioners, “synchro” was long perceived as little more than entertaining pageantry, and its athletes had to battle against the current to earn a spot at the highest echelons of sport.

Now, on the 40th anniversary of synchronized swimming’s elevation to Olympic status, “Swimming Pretty” honors its incredible history of grit, glamor and sheer athleticism.