Until the advent of radar and airborne ASW aircraft there was no requirement for submarines to operate exclusively submerged. Since they were submersibles rather than true submarines the hull shapes needed to be optimized for surface running. The limited target acquisition means available meant that in order to hunt effectively they had to do so on the surface.
The British
R-Class boats of 1917 were the first submarines designed for ASW and had a fairly modern hull form with powerful electric motors and were capable of over 14 kts submerged.
A starting point for further info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_R_class_submarine
So the basic technology for high-speed underwater performance existed early in the history of the submarine even if the sciences of hydrodynamics and acoustics were in their infancy, what was lacking was the need. Aircraft and radar doomed surface operations creating the military requirement for both high submerged speed and autonomous guided torpedoes but it was not until 1943 that these factors became important in the Atlantic and they were never decisive in the Pacific.