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UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 250

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM

THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

PAPER 64

WOMEN'S BATHING AND SWIMMING COSTUME IN THE UNITED STATES

_Claudia B. Kidwell_

INTRODUCTION 3 CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT 6 BATHING COSTUME 14 SWIMMING COSTUME 24 CONCLUSIONS 32

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS

CITY OF WASHINGTON

1968

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402--Price 50 cents (paper cover)

_Claudia B. Kidwell_

_Women's Bathing and Swimming Costume in the United States_

_The evolution of the modern swim suit from an unflattering, restrictive bathing dress into an attractive, functional costume is traced from colonial times to the present. This evolution in style reflects not only the increasing involvement of women in aquatic activities but also the changing motivations for feminine participation. The nature of the style changes in aquatic dress were influenced by the fashions of the period, while functional improvements were limited by prevailing standards of modesty. This mutation of the bathing dress to the swim suit demonstrates the changing attitudes and status of women in the United States, from the traditional image of the subordinate "weaker sex" to an equal and active member of the society._

THE AUTHOR: _Claudia B. Kidwell is assistant curator of American costume, department of civil history, in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology._

Introduction

Women's bathing dress holds a unique place in the history of American costume. This specialized garb predates the age of sports costume which arrived during the last half of the 19th century. Although bathing dress shares this distinction with riding costume, the aquatic garb was merely utilitarian in the late 18th century while riding costume had a fashionable role. From its modest status, bathing gowns and later bathing dresses became more important until their successor, the swimming suit, achieved a permanent place among the outfits worn by 20th century women. The social significance of this accomplishment was best expressed by Foster Rhea Dulles, author of _America Learns to Play_, in 1940, when he wrote:

The modern bathing-suit ... symbolized the new status of women even more than the short skirts and bobbed hair of the jazz age or the athleticism of the devotees of tennis and golf. It was the final proof of their successful assertion of the right to enjoy whatever recreation they chose, costumed according to the demands of the sport rather than the tabus of an outworn prudery, and to enjoy it in free and natural association with men.[1]

[1] FOSTER RHEA DULLES, _America Learns to Play, 1607-1940_ (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1940), p. 363.

Since the prescribed limitations of women's role in any given period are determined and affected by many social factors, the evolution of the bathing gown to the swimming suit may not only be dependent upon the changes in the American woman's way of life, but also may reflect certain technological and sociological factors that are not readily identifiable. The purpose of this paper is to describe the changes in women's bathing dress and wherever pertinent to present the factors affecting these styles.[2]

[2] The author is indebted to Mrs. Anne W. Murray, formerly Curator in Charge of American Costume, Smithsonian Institution, for the interest she has shown throughout the research and writing of this paper. The difficulties of this work would have been greatly compounded without the benefit of her experience and encouragement.

Anyone who attempts to research the topic of swimming and related subjects will be confronted with a history of varying reactions. Ralph Thomas, in 1904, described his experiences through the years that he spent compiling a book on swimming:

When asked what I was doing, I have felt the greatest reluctance to say a work on the literature of swimming. People who were writing novels or some other thing of little practical utility always looked at me with a smile of pity on my mentioning swimming. Though I am bound to say that, when I gave them some idea of the work, the pity changed somewhat but then they would say "Why don't you give us a new edition of your Handbook of Fictitious Names?" As if the knowledge of the real name of an author was of any importance in comparison with the discussion of a subject that more or less concerns every human being.[3]

[3] RALPH THOMAS, _Swimming_ (London: Sampson Low, Marsten & Company Limited, 1904), p. 15.

Such reactions toward research about swimming probably discouraged many serious efforts of writing about the subject. Its scant coverage and even omission in histories of recreation or sports may be explained by the fact that swimming cannot be categorized as simply physical exercise, skill, recreation, or competitive sport. In trying to determine the extent to which women swam in times past it is frustrating to observe the historians' masculine bias in researching and reporting social history.

A study of women's bathing dress meets with similar problems, and while a discussion of bathing dress can evoke considerable interest, its nature is usually considered more superficial than serious. Descriptions of, and even brief references to, bathing apparel for women are very scarce before the third quarter of the 19th century. Before this time only decorative costume items were considered worthy of description and bathing costume was not in this category. It is only within comparatively recent times that costume historians have conceded sufficient importance to bathing dress to include meaningful descriptions in their research.

Participation in water activities was widespread in the ancient world although the earliest origins of this activity are unknown. For example, in Greece and, later, in Rome, swimming was valued as a pleasurable exercise and superb physical training for warriors. The more sedentary citizens turned to the baths which became the gathering point for professional men, philosophers, and students. Thus bathing and swimming, combined originally to fulfill the functions of cleansing and exercise purely for physical well being, developed the secondary functions of recreation and social intercourse.

With the rise of the Christian church and its spreading anti-pagan attitudes, many of the sumptuous baths were destroyed. Christian asceticism also may have contributed to the decline of bathing for cleansing. In addition there was a secular belief that outdoor bathing helped to spread the fearful epidemics that periodically swept the continent. Although there is isolated evidence that swimming was valued as a physical skill,[4] swimming and bathing all but disappeared during the Middle Ages.

[4] JOSEPH STRUTT, _The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_ (London: Chatto and Windus, 1876), pp. 151-152.

In 1531, long after the Middle Ages, Sir Thomas Elyot wrote of swimming that

There is an exercise, whyche is right profitable in extreme danger of warres, but ... it hathe not ben of longe tyme muche used, specially amoge noble men, perchaunce some reders whl lyttell esteeme it.[5]

[5] SIR THOMAS ELYOT, _The Boke Named the Governour_ (London, 1557), vol. 1, pp. 54-55.

This early English writer gave no instructions, but expounded on the value of swimming as a skill that could be useful in time of war.

It herewith becomes necessary to differentiate between bathing and swimming with their attendant goals, for it was the goals of each activity which influenced the associated customs and costume designs. For this discussion we shall define bathing as the act of immersing all or part of the body in water for cleansing, therapeutic, recreational, or religious purposes, and swimming as the self-propulsion of the body through water. When we refer to swimming it is necessary to distinguish whether it was considered a useful skill, a therapeutic exercise, a recreation, or a competitive sport. Thus it is important to note that while bathing for all purposes and swimming as a physical exercise, recreation, and sport died out during the Middle Ages, the latter continued to be valued as a skill, particularly for warriors. This function of swimming survived to form the link between the ancients and the 17th century.

According to Ralph Thomas, the first book on swimming was written by Nicolas Winmann, a professor of languages at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, and printed in 1528. The first book published in England on swimming was written in Latin by Everard Digby and printed in 1587. As Thomas has stated, Digby's book

... is entitled to a far more important place than the first of the world, because, whereas Winmann had never (up to 1866) been translated or copied or even quoted by any one, Digby has been three times translated; twice into English and once into French and through this latter became and probably still is the best known treatise on the subject.[6]

[6] THOMAS, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 172.

This French version was first published in 1696 with its purported author being Monsieur Melchisédesh Thévenot. In his introduction Thévenot indicates that he has made use of Digby's book in his own treatise and that he knows of Winmann's publication. The English translation of Thévenot's version became the standard instruction book for English-speaking peoples. Typically, his reasons in favor of men swimming were based on its being a useful skill (i.e., to keep from being drowned in a shipwreck, to escape capture when being pursued by enemies, and to attack an enemy posted on the opposite side of a river).[7]

[7] MELCHISÉDESH THÉVENOT, _The Art of Swimming_ (London: John Lever, 1789), pp. 4-5.

In the 18th and 19th centuries numerous other publications on swimming appeared--too numerous to deal with in this paper. Nevertheless, the refinement of the art of swimming was not related to the number of instruction books. Few of these books actually offered new insights in comparison with those that were outright plagiarisms or filled with misinformation. In the meantime, bathing was reintroduced and as this activity became more widespread swimming was regarded as more than a useful skill, but only for men.

There is little evidence of women bathing or swimming prior to the 17th century; these activities seem to have been exclusively for men. Nevertheless, Thomas refers to Winmann as writing, in 1538, that

at Zurich in his day (thus implying that he was an elderly man and that the custom had ceased) the young men and maidens bathed together around the statue of "Saint Nicolai." Even in those days his pupil asks "were not the girls ashamed of being naked?" "No, as they wore bathing drawers--sometimes a marriage was brought about." If any young man failed to bring up stones from the bottom, when he dived, he had to suffer the penalty of wearing drawers like the girls.[8]

[8] THOMAS, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 161.

Thomas goes on to say that the only evidence he had found of women swimming in England in early days was in a ballad entitled "The Swimming Lady" and dating from about 1670. Despite these isolated references it was not until the 19th century that women were encouraged to swim.

After its decline in the Middle Ages, bathing achieved new popularity as a medicinal treatment for both men and women. In England this revival occurred in the 17th century when certain medical men held that bathing in fresh water had healing properties. The resultant spas, which were developed at freshwater springs to effect such "cures," expanded rapidly as the number of their devotees increased. By the mid-18th century, rival practitioners claimed even greater health-giving properties for sea water both as a drink and for bathing. An economic benefit resulted when, tiny, poverty-stricken fishing hamlets became famous through the patronage of the wealthy in search of health as well as pleasure.

When the early colonists left England in the first half of the 17th century, the beliefs and practices they had acquired in their original homes were brought to the new world. Thus, it is important to note that during this period in Europe, swimming was a skill practiced by few, primarily soldiers and sailors. It was not until the second half of the century that bathing for therapeutic purposes was becoming popular in the old world.

The earliest reference to women's bathing costume has been quoted previously in Winmann's amazing description of mixed bathing at Zurich. He referred to women, wearing only drawers, bathing with men as a custom no longer practiced when he wrote his book in 1538.

One of the earliest illustrations of bathing costume I have located is part of a painted fan leaf, about 1675, that was reproduced in volume 9 of Maurice Leloir's _Histoire du Costume de l'Antiquité_ in 1914. In one corner of this painting, which depicts a variety of activities going on in the Seine and on the river banks at Paris, women are shown immersing themselves in water within a covered wooden frame. They are wearing loose, light-colored gowns and long headdresses. An English source of the late 17th century described a very similar costume.

The ladye goes into the bath with garments made of yellow canvas, which is stiff and made large with great sleeves like a parson's gown. The water fills it up so that it's borne off that your shape is not seen, it does not cling close as other lining.[9]

[9] CELIA FIENNES, _Through England on Horseback_, as quoted in IRIS BROOKE and JAMES LAVER, _English Costume from the Fourteenth through the Nineteenth Century_ (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), p. 252.

In the course of my contacts with other costume historians I have encountered the belief that women did not wear any bathing costume before the mid-19th century. Supporting this theory I have seen a reproduction of a print, about 1812, showing women bathing nude in the ocean at Margate, England, but the evidence already presented indicates clearly that costume was worn earlier. Also certain English secondary sources refer to a nondescript chemise-type of bathing dress that was worn during the first quarter of the 19th century. Because little study has been given European bathing costume, it is not possible to conjecture under what circumstances costume was or was not used. We do know, however, that when bathing became popular in the new world bathing gowns were worn by some women in the old.

Cultural Environment

As many European cultural traits were transmitted to the new world via England, so was the introduction of water activities. Nevertheless it required a number of years for such cultural refinements as bathing to take root in the new environment. The early colonists brought with them a limited knowledge of swimming, but they did not have the leisure to cultivate this skill. In New England the Puritan religious and social beliefs were as restrictive as the lack of leisure time. In this harsh climate, self-indulgence in swimming and bathing did not fulfill the requirements of being righteous and useful. Thus the growing popularity of bathing among the wealthy in Europe during the 17th and early 18th centuries had little initial impact in the new world.

Although swimming as a skill predated the introduction of bathing to the new world, I will first discuss bathing since the customs and facilities established for it reveal the development of swimming in America, first for men and then for women.

BATHING

One of the earliest sources showing an appreciation of mineral waters for bathing in the new world is a 1748 reference in George Washington's diary to the "fam'd Warm Springs."[10] At that time only open ground surrounded the springs which were located within a dense forest.

[10] GEORGE WASHINGTON, _The Writings of George Washington_, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington: United States Congress, 1931), vol. 1, p. 8.

Another entry for July 31, 1769, records his departure with Mrs. Washington for these springs (now known as Berkeley Springs, West Virginia) where they stayed more than a month. They were accompanied by her daughter, Patsy Custis, who was probably taken in hope of curing a form of epilepsy with which she was afflicted. In the latter part of the 18th century hundreds of visitors annually flocked to these springs. Although the accommodations were primitive, we early note that the avowed therapeutic aims for visiting these waters were very quickly combined with a growing social life on dry land.

Rude log huts, board and canvas tents, and even covered wagons, served as lodging rooms, while every party brought its own substantial provisions of flour, meat and bacon, depending for lighter articles of diet on the "Hill folk," or the success of their own foragers. A large hollow scooped in the sand, surrounded by a screen of pine brush, was the only bathing-house; and this was used alternately by ladies and gentlemen. The time set apart for the ladies was announced by a blast on a long tin horn, at which signal all of the opposite sex retired to a prescribed distance, ... Here day and night passed in a round of eating and drinking, bathing, fiddling, dancing, and reveling. Gaming was carried to a great excess and horse-racing was a daily amusement.[11]

[11] JOHN J. MOORMAN, _The Virginia Springs_ (Richmond: J. W. Randolph, 1854), pp. 259-260.

The more permanent bath houses found at the increasing number of springs in the early 19th century were really only shanties built where the water bubbled up. Nevertheless, as civilization moved in upon these resorts, the current taboos and mores were soon imposed. These gave rise to customs, facilities, and inventions peculiar to the pastime. The more permanent facilities carefully separated men from women. Frequently the women's bath was located a considerable distance from the men's and surrounded by a high fence. Female attendants were at hand to wait upon the ladies, and private rooms were prepared for their use both before and after bathing.

In the early 19th century the fame of Berkeley Springs was eclipsed temporarily by the growing popularity of other springs, such as Saratoga in the north and White Sulphur Springs in the south. The newest facilities, however, and the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, restored Berkeley to its former prosperity in the early 1850s.

The bath houses at Berkeley Springs in the 1850s are an example of the facilities that were considered convenient, extensive, and elegant during this period. The gentlemen's bath house contained fourteen dressing rooms and ten large bathing rooms. In addition to the plunge baths, which were twelve feet long, five feet wide, and four and a half feet deep, the men had a swimming bath that was sixty feet long, twenty feet wide, and five feet deep. The ladies' and men's bath houses were located on opposite sides of the grove. As if this were not reassuring enough, we are told that the building for the weaker sex was surrounded by several acres of trees. Thus protected, feminine bathers could choose either one of the nine private baths or the plunge bath, which was thirty feet long by sixteen feet wide and four and a half feet deep, as well as use a shower or artificial warm baths.[12]

[12] Ibid., p. 264.

The differences between the two bath houses show that women were not as active in the water as the men. Judging from the kind of facilities that were provided at Berkeley Springs, the ladies did less "plunging" than the men and no swimming.

Although accepted in England, bathing in =salt= water did not become popular in the new world until some time after bathing at springs was established.

In 1794 a Mr. Bailey announced that he planned to institute "bathing machines and several species of entertainment" at his resort on Long Island.[13] "A machine of peculiar construction for bathing in the open sea" was advertised a few years later by a hotel proprietor at Nahant, Massachusetts.[14] There is some question as to what the term "bathing machine" describes. Existing records show that W. Merritt of New York City received a patent dated February 1, 1814, for a "bathing machine." Unfortunately neither a description nor a drawing can be found today. European patents from the first half of the 19th century reveal that a bathing machine could be a contraption in which an individual bathed in privacy. This is what the above quotations seem to be describing. In general usage, however, "bathing machine" could also have been a device in which an individual removed his clothing to prepare for bathing; this type will be described later.

[13] HENRY WANSAY, _An Excursion to the United States_ (Salisbury: J. Easton, 1798), p. 211, as quoted in DULLES, _America Learns to Play_, p. 152.

[14] FRED ALLAN WILSON, _Some Annals of Nahant_ (Boston: Old Corner Book Store, 1928), p. 77, as quoted in DULLES, _America Learns to Play_, p. 152.

By the early 19th century floating baths were established in every city of any importance including Boston, Salem, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah. One bath located at the foot of Jay Street in New York City was described as follows:

The building is an octagon of seventy feet in diameter, with a plank floor supported by logs so as to sink the center bath four feet below the surface of the water, but in the private baths the water may be reduced to three or even two feet so as to be perfectly safe for children. It is placed in the current so always to be supplied with ocean and pure water and rises and falls with the tide.[15]

[15] _New York Evening Post_ (June 4, 1813).