Swimming Her Own Course: Agency in the Professional Swimming Career of Alice Cavill.

Alice May Cavill (1874–1945) worked in and around water for three decades as a professional swimming performer and teacher, based largely in Australia but travelling throughout the Pacific Rim. Alice was a member of the famous Sydney-based Cavill family of swimmers, but as a woman her exploits have been overlooked in the same way that the sporting experiences of many other colonial-era sportswomen have been marginalised and ignored. This article examines Cavill's swimming career through the lens of agency and conformity, considering how she was able to successfully pursue her own personal and professional pursuits for so long while balancing societal expectations of reputable female swimming professionals. It contextualises Cavill's career within the activities of other female swimming instructors, child performers and entertainers as well as alongside her family's aquatic activities, addresses factors contributing to her successful teaching and exhibiting career that were within her ability to control, and charts purely performative episodes that presented greater challenges to gender norms. This study contributes to the growing literature on early professional women swimmers and how these athletes negotiated their way through social strictures to forge self-directed careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of the History of Sport is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)