Trudy Ederle caused a sensation 88 years ago yesterday when she became the youngest person to set a world record in any sport. The girl from Manhattan was 12 years 298 days old when she broke the world best for 880 yards freestyle.

One of six children of a German butcher, she was taught to swim by her mother, who dangled her in the water on the end of a rope at the family's summer home in New Jersey. She swam within three days, and just four years later was a world record-holder. By 17, Trudy held 18 world records. She won gold for the US freestyle relay squad at the Paris Olympics in 1924, and bronze in the 100m and 400m freestyle. But it was at longer distances that she excelled.

On August 6, 1926, Trudy set out to swim the Channel, a feat only previously achieved by five men. A pompously misogynist London Daily News trumpeted before it: "Even the most uncompromising champion of the rights and capacities of women must admit that in contests of physical skill, speed, and endurance, they must remain forever the weaker sex."

Bankrolled by two US newspapers (which cost her her amateur status) she entered the water after 7am at Cap Gris-Nez. The sea was calm, but by mid-morning it was raining. By afternoon the tide had turned, and wind and currents made the Channel choppy. After 12 hours the wind was reportedly gale force and her trainer told her to come out of the water. "What for?" asked Ederle.

Fourteen hours and 31 minutes after she started, Trudy tramped up the beach at Kingsdown, near Dover. She was greeted by a British immigration officer who asked for her passport.

Ederle was not only the first woman to swim the Channel, but had knocked an hour and 59 minutes off the fastest time. This despite having covered 35 miles in the water to complete the 21 mile distance. The Daily News, and male pride, were duly chastened. Instantly, Ederle became the world's most famous woman. Her record stood for 24 years.

Two tugs accompanied her, filled with relatives, friends, reporters, and photographers. A wind-up gramophone played music, and those in the boats sang. Ederle's followers needed cheering up more than she did with many seasick. "I had to keep joking with them to keep their spirits up," she said. "I remember they sang endlessly: Let Me Call You Sweetheart, Sweet Rosie O'Grady and After the Ball Is Over."

She returned home to a ticker-tape welcome and a Broadway motorcade. It's claimed a crowd of some two million tried to touch her car. Foghorns sounded on every ship in New York harbour and aircraft dropped flowers. A scroll from the mayor of New York praised her: "indomitable courage, skillful grace, and tremendous athletic prowess".

When she reached her own neighbourhood, the adulation didn't subside. Thousands stood outside the home of "Trudy, Queen of the Seas" and many were perched on adjoining roofs, and round every window.

Offers from promoters, manufacturers, and movie producers added up to almost $1m. These included $125,000 for a 20-week stage tour. For the first time, a swimmer was box office. She did a two-year vaudeville tour as a swimmer, and co-starred with Bebe Daniels in a film Swim, Girl, Swim.

There was a law suit against a music publishing firm associated with Irving Berlin, over a a song entitled "Trudy."

Though Ederle's Channel record was soon beaten by a German, Ernst Vierkoetter (who had lost an eye in World War I), there were challenges for up to $50,000 for Ederle to race another American woman, Cleminton Corson, whose backer won $100,000 in a bet when she swam round Manhattan Island.

But then Trudy fell down a flight of stairs and sustained a spinal injury. She was told by specialists she would never walk again, but persisted with a brace and after four years, proved them wrong, returning to appear in the Aquacade at the 1939 New York World Fair. When war broke out she worked in an aircraft plant.

By the time the war was over she was totally deaf, which compromised her ambition of becoming a swimming instructor. Her hearing had been partially impaired since childhood, as a result of measles, and swimming had done further damage. She was told she couldn't be a teacher, but confounded that by teaching deaf children to swim.

Ederle died aged 98, in 2003. She was among the first group inducted to swimming's Hall of fame, in 1965.