In 1904, the United States Bureau of Labor prepared an exhibit for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis on the nation's public baths. 1 The Bureau reported that nearly 80 percent of the ninety-nine indoor and outdoor public bathing facilities in America had been estab-lished between 1895 and 1904. An explosion of public bathing had occurred in schools, on beaches and in industry. Indoor public bath-houses counted for over half of the boom, increasing from six to forty-nine in those ten years. 2

The decade which saw the establishment of public bathhouses also experienced the flowering of many other public institutions. By the turn of the century, many cities provided schools, libraries, museums, zoos, parks, playgrounds and summer concerts, as well as police, fire protection, liquor licensing, sanitary inspection, garbage collection, paved streets and sidewalks, hospitals, insane asylums and some direct poor relief. Made possible by the economies of scale that a densly populated city offered, the institutions embodied a new civic ethos which sought to gather the disparate urban groups into one great community." The city-dweller has become a citizen," proclaimed Frederic C. Howe," His social sense is being organized and his demands upon the government have been rapidly increasing." 3 Reformers such as Howe hoped that all would use these new institutions and participate in a common civic life. The reformers believed that in return for insuring the citizens' physical and moral well-being, city life required adherence to certain standards