Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America

4. The "Swimming Pool Age": 1920 to 1940

CHAPTER 4 THE “SWIMMING POOL AGE” 1920 TO 1940 A wonderful neighborhood and fraternal spirit, however, seems to have gripped the entire section and the guards stationed about the pool seem almost an unnecessary adjunct to the enterprise. Everybody seemed imbued with the community spirit and bent on having a thoroughly good time. Men, women, children of the Ninth ward section are getting acquainted with each other and cementing bonds of community friendship such as can only be gained through intimacy in acquatic [sic] sports.—Wilmington Evening Journal (1925) On Labor Day 1934, tiny Avalon, Pennsylvania, held its first annual Water Carnival at the town’s municipal swimming pool. The pool, which opened earlier in the summer, was an ideal place to hold a community celebration. Many of the town’s 5,000 residents could fit in the large pool and the remainder could lounge along the broad concrete deck surrounding it. The Water Carnival included swim races and water stunts, but the main attraction was the “bathing beauty contest.” In the days before the event, local newspapermen visited the Avalon pool to take pictures of the contestants preparing for the contest. One photo showed Gladys Korman sitting on a diving board, wearing a low-cut one-piece suit, provocatively dipping her toes in the water. Another photo showed four other contestants applying makeup as they sat beside the pool. The caption read: “Sisters Mary Jane and Peggy Aland , Left, and Martha and Gertrude Hacher show how they prepare for the beauty contest.” These photos advertised who and what spectators could expect to see. During the contest, twenty teenage girls paraded before the large mixed-gender crowd wearing lots of makeup and fashionable, tight-fitting swimsuits that exposed their legs, arms, and shoulders and revealed the outlines of their hips and breasts. The hundreds in attendance stared at the girls, evaluated their appearance, and cheered for the most alluring.¹ 88 The “Swimming Pool Age” Avalon’s swimming pool and Water Carnival exemplify several historic changes that occurred in the history of municipal swimming pools between 1920 and 1940. That a town with 5,000 residents had a municipal pool was quite novel and shows the astounding proliferation of swimming pools at the time. Previously, most municipal pools were located in a few large northern cities. During the 1920s and 1930s, however, over a thousand cities and towns throughout the country opened swimming pools. The building occurred in two distinct phases. The first phase lasted from 1920 to 1929. During this period of relative prosperity, cities built pools to meet Americans’ increasing demand for outdoor recreation and leisure activities. With the onset of the Great Depression, municipal pool construction slowed. The federal government , however, initiated a second wave of pool building in 1934 that lasted until the end of the decade. The New Deal swimming pools were as phenomenal a public works endeavor as the much-touted Grand Coulee Dam and the Tennessee Valley Authority. They provided leisure and recreation for millions of Americans who desperately needed relief from the heat and hard times. Municipal pools were also completely redesigned during the 1920s and 1930s. Like Avalon’s pool, they were typically quite large. Some were bigger than football fields and capable of accommodating thousands of swimmers at a time. The pools of the interwar years came in a variety of shapes—circular , semicircular, foot-shaped, kidney-shaped, and the traditional rectangular . The pools also provided considerable leisure space—sandy beaches, grassy lawns, and broad concrete decks. As a result, lounging, sunbathing, and socializing became quintessential pool activities. Cities typically located these resort pools in large parks that were easily accessible to most residents. Whereas earlier pools had a distinctly urban appearance and setting, these new pools looked quite natural, surrounded as they were by sand and grass and situated in the sylvan beauty of a park. The resort pools of the interwar years democratized swimming in America and transformed the social composition of swimmers. Millions of new swimmers—including large numbers of females, adults, and middleclass Americans—flocked to them. Gone were the days when working-class boys dominated these public spaces. Most critically, the social divisions that characterized pool use during the Industrial Age largely evaporated during the 1920s and 1930s. Working class and middle class, men and women, and children and adults all swam together. The social integration resulted from several factors. For one, the redesign and relocation of pools made them appealing to adults and the middle...