Abstract

In the 1930s and '40s, nightclub impresario Billy Rose cast Olympic swimmers and divers in starring roles for his patriotic World's Fair revue. Positioning the Aquacade in the genealogies of mass spectacles, militaristic display, girly revues, and the rising popularity of pool culture reveals the theatrical framing of athletic labor as vigorously effective in creating a visible female collective on the eve of World War II.

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