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.
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]
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]
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.
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]
As was true at the springs, men and women were segregated; but in the floating baths they were only separated by being in different compartments rather than in different bath houses.
Although there were a number of these baths there were not enough to cover all of the inviting river banks and sea shores. There are many instances of men enjoying the water of undeveloped shores and there is some evidence of women venturing into the bays and rivers ([fig. 2]).
Figure 2.—“Bathing Party, 1810,” painting by William P. Chappel.
(Courtesy of Museum of the City of New York.)
Nevertheless, few women ventured into the open ocean during the early 19th century. They were generally afraid to brave the force of the ocean waves with only a female companion, since prevailing attitudes regarding the proper behavior of a lady prevented them from being accompanied by a man. When a few ignored this dictate, their bold actions gave rise to “ill-founded stories of want of delicacy on the part of the females.”[16] An unbiased traveler, who gave an account of this mixed bathing in 1833, stated that parties always went into the water completely dressed and for that reason he could see no great violation of modesty. Mixed bathing at the seashore ([fig. 3]) was gaining acceptance, however, when it was reported only thirteen years later that “... ladies and gentlemen bathe in company, as is the fashion all along the Atlantic Coast....”[17]
Figure 3.—“Scene at Cape May,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, August 1849. (Courtesy of The New York Public Library.)
In place of the dressing rooms available in the floating baths, special facilities were frequently provided. The bathing machine—in this case a device in which one changed clothes—was used where there was a gentle slope down to the water. This species of bathing machine was a small wooden cabin set on very high wheels with steps leading down from a door in the front. The bather entered and, while he was changing, the machine was pulled into the sea by a horse. When water was well above the axles the horse was uncoupled and taken ashore. The bather was then free to enter the sea by descending the steps pointed away from the shore ([fig. 4]). Machines of the 18th and early 19th century were frequently equipped with an awning which shielded the bather from public view as she or he descended the steps to enter the water. These awnings were left off the bathing machines during the last half of the 19th century. Such machines were used to a great extent in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the United States, however, they were used only to a limited extent during the first half of the 19th century. By 1870 they had practically disappeared—being replaced by the stationary, sentry-box type of individual structure and the large communal bath house.
Figure 4.—“The Bathe at Newport,” by Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly Newspaper, September 1858.
(Smithsonian photo 59665.)
“Sentry-boxes” were used before the 1870s at beaches where the terrain did not encourage the use of the bathing machines. At Long Branch, New Jersey, and at one of the beaches at Newport, Rhode Island, lines of these stationary structures were available to the bather for changing, one half designated for women and the other half for men. Hours varied but it was the practice to run up colored flags to signal bathing times for the ladies and then the gentlemen. A male correspondent wrote from Newport in 1857:
If you are social and wish to bathe promiscuously, you put on a dress and go in with the ladies, if you want to cultivate the “fine and froggy art of swimming,” unencumbered by attire, you wait until the twelve o’clock red-flag is run up—when the ladies retire.[18]
From its early beginnings, in the late 18th and early 19th century, the summer excursion to the resorts and spas grew in popularity. In 1848, a writer of a Philadelphia fashion report explained that
Very few ladies of fashion are now in town, most of them being birds of passage during the last of July and all of August. Most Americans seem to have adopted the fashion of visiting watering-places through the summer.[19]
As the summer excursion became a social event, the recreational possibilities of bathing overshadowed its earlier therapeutic function. Bathing became part of an increasingly elaborate schedule of activities where each event—bathing, dining, concerts, balls, promenades, carriage rides—had its appointed time, place, and proper costume.
In addition to stiff ocean breezes, seaside resorts had an extra appeal that beguiled visitors away from the spas—namely mixed bathing. For during the bathing hour at the seashore all the stiffness and etiquette of select society was abandoned to pleasure.
Again and again I try it. Deliriusm! I forget even Miss ——, and dive headforemost into the billows. I rush to meet them. I jump on their backs. I ride on their combs, or I let them roll over me.... I am in the thickest of the bathers, and amid the roar of waves, am driven wild with excitement by the shouts of laughter; burst of noisy merriment, and little jolly female shrieks of fun. All are wild with excitement, ducking, diving, splashing, floating, rollicking.[20]
Thus bathing was transformed from a medicinal treatment to a pleasurable pursuit.
Excursionists had to be hardy individuals, firm in their resolve to complete their trip. Although many railroad lines had been completed by the 1850s, transportation problems were by no means solved. For example, a New York tourist who planned to enjoy a summer at Lake George had to travel by boat from New York City to Albany and Troy, then by railroad to Morean Corner, and, finally, by stage to the lake. After listing the difficulties endured by excursionists, a particularly embittered correspondent commented in 1856, “... we envy these happy people in nothing but the power to be idle.”[21]
By the 1870s, travel facilities were rapidly being improved and many new summer resorts were established which appealed to a larger segment of the population.
Comparatively few can stay long at one time at the springs or seaside resorts, and hence the peculiar value of arrangements like those for enabling multitudes to take frequent short pleasant excursions down the New York Bay and along the Atlantic coast, as well as up the Hudson, and through Long Island Sound.[22]
Beaches that catered to a large cross-section of the population provided a wide variety of informal activities that replaced the established functions found at the more select bathing resorts. For example, the illustration of Coney Island in 1878 ([fig. 5]) shows a puppet show; pony rides for children; a hurdy gurdy; vendors of walking sticks, sunglasses, and food; and guide ropes in the water for timid bathers.
Figure 5.—“Scenes and Incidents on Coney Island,” Harper’s Weekly Newspaper, August 1878.
(Smithsonian photo 59666.)
In the 1890s foreign visitors were impressed by American concern with finding opportunities to play; early in the century they had remarked on the apparent lack of interest in amusements. The term, “summer resorts,” no longer referred to a relatively small number of fashionable watering places. The New York Tribune was running eight columns of summer hotel advertisements aimed directly at the middle class. The popular Summer Tourist and Excursion Guide listed moderate-priced hotels and railroad excursions; it was a far departure from the fashionable tour of the 1840s.
Thus, as economic and technological factors changed, bathing was transformed from a medicinal treatment for the leisure class to a recreation enjoyed by a large portion of the population.