"Milly-Illy-Illy Gade": Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This sheet music for "Milly-Illy-Illy Gade" was composed by Marie Randby.

This song commemorates Mille Gade Corson's historic swim across the English Channel. Mille Gade Corson, the second woman to swim the English Channel, three weeks after Gertrude Ederle's record-breaking Channel swim, emigrated to the United States from Denmark. In 1919 Corson became a Life Saving Instructor and Lifeguard at the Harlem branch of the YWCA. Two years later she became the second woman to swim around Manhattan Island and attempted to swim the English Channel in 1923, but was forced to abandon the effort 2 miles from the French coast. After her successful 1926 swim, Corson returned to the United States to many accolades and performed on the vaudeville circuit as the first mother to swim the English Channel.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1926
• depicted: Corson, Amelia Gade
• Object Name: sheet music
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 12 1/4 in x 10 in; 31.115 cm x 25.4 cm
• place made: United States: New York, New York
• web subject: Sports
• name of sport: Swimming
• level of sport: Amateur
• general subject association: Women
• ID Number: 1981.0729.04
• accession number: 1981.0729
• catalog number: 1981.0729.04
• Credit Line: Gift of Esther Stoyanoff
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.