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.