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CHAPTER 2 “A MEANS OF PHYSICAL CULTURE” THE REDEFINITION OF MUNICIPAL POOLS DURING THE 1890S Both kinds of swimming baths [indoor and outdoor] are not intended for cleansing purposes, but are adapted only for pleasurable and healthful muscular exercise of the body and limbs. Their object is rather to maintain or improve health by hardening the body.—William Paul Gerhard, Modern Baths and Bathhouse (1908) On July 9, 1895, a group of local residents presented a petition to the West Chicago Park Board “with upwards of ten thousand signatures attached” requesting an outdoor pool in Douglas Park. Given the previous history of municipal pools, this was a curious request. Douglas Park was situated in the midst of a growing streetcar suburb several miles west of downtown Chicago, not the type of neighborhood in which earlier pools in Boston, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee were located. Furthermore, the middle-class families that lived near the park and signed the petition had tubs in their homes. They clearly did not want or need a public place to bathe. Instead, as the accompanying request for an attached “open-air gymnasium” suggested, they wanted a public place to exercise and recreate.¹ The park board accepted the petition as “notification from the public of its preference” and built a pool complex clearly designed to promote sport and fitness rather than cleanliness.² The facility contained showers in the dressing rooms, which made the two pools superfluous as baths. The park board also surrounded each pool with a “promenade” that permitted spectators to watch the swimmers. These observation galleries would have been both unnecessary and inappropriate had the facility been a bath. Furthermore , the pools themselves were particularly well suited for exercise and athletic competition. At 55 by 120 feet and 55 by 60 feet, they were much 32 Redefinition of Municipal Pools larger than earlier municipal pools and could accommodate lap swimming and races. The pools also had several springboards, which challenged swimmers to perform acrobatic feats in the air.³ In terms of location, design, and intended function, Chicago’s Douglas Park Pool represented a radical departure from earlier municipal pools. The pool was also novel in that the park board intended it to serve a diverse cross section of West Side residents.The opening ceremony symbolized this intention. Several different ethnic groups and social classes marched together in a parade that was the centerpiece of the ceremony. Bohemian, Polish , Slovenian, Norwegian, and German Turner societies led the procession, followed by representatives of Chicago’s trade unions, and finally members of the Chicago Bicycle Club pedaled past the cheering crowd.⁴ The speeches that followed further emphasized that all citizens were welcome at the pool. Walter Bogle, president of the West Chicago Park Board, told the crowd that the pool would be open to “every man, woman, and child who so desired to take advantage of it without the cost of a cent.”⁵ The democratic intentions of the park board were more than mere rhetoric. As Bogle indicated in his speech, admission to the pool was free. Furthermore, Douglas Park was accessible to a diverse population. It was bordered by a middle-class neighborhood but was also accessible from several nearby working-class sections of the city.⁶ This was to be a quintessentially democratic public space. The pool did in fact attract a diverse crowd, when it first opened. Newspaper reports emphasized the variety of swimmers. Small boys were “very conspicuous in the crowd that besieged the place,” but they were not alone. “Men, women and girls joined in the house-warming,” but the sexes did not swim together. Males swam in the larger tank and females in the smaller one. All social classes were represented as well. Well-to-do swimmers “rode in carriages” to the pool; those who owned bicycles “scorched down boulevard and park drives on wheels”; while those who could afford neither carriages nor bicycles “ambled leisurely along on foot.”⁷ With carriages, bikes, and shoes set aside, Chicagoans mingled on a more equal basis in the pool. As a newspaper headline proclaimed, Douglas Park Pool was indeed a place “Where All May Dip.”⁸ Within a couple of years, however, the swimmers became much less diverse . In 1900 the park board began charging an entrance fee to Douglas Park Pool “owing to the excessive patronage with which it [had] been favored.” The pools had become “hard to manage,” and the board concluded that the best way to restore order was to reduce the number of swimmers...

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