Books & Arts: Swimming Pools

[Guy Berger]

(The book is Jeff Wiltse's Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America)

Swimming pools

At the deep end

May 10th 2007

From The Economist print edition

FROM cleanliness to sociability to athleticism, swimming baths are a symbol of life in America. Jeff Wiltse unpicks a story that begins in an age when the main reason for public pools was to let poor people get clean. In the days before chlorination that created problems: a swimming pool in New York's Central Park would attract “all sorts of undesirable people”, said the parks commissioner. If it was “used by all classes” said the New York Times in 1910, “it will become foul in a very short time”.

Public swimming pools soon became a touchstone of municipal social reform. But two other kinds of prejudice took over. The first was against the mixing of lightly clad men and women, which could encourage lewdness and promiscuity. That gradually eroded. By the mid-1930s, “bathing costumes” designed to conceal curves and bulges were giving way to “swimsuits” designed for practicality or even, excitingly, to showcase the body.

But as sexual taboos were breaking down, another set was growing, conflating prudishness, paranoia and straight racism. The book starts with a poignant story from 1951 of a victorious children's baseball team that wanted to celebrate by swimming at a municipal pool in Youngstown, Ohio. But one team member, Al Bright, was black. Initially the pool attendants denied him admittance. After many protests, the supervisor relented. The “negro” was allowed to enter the pool so long as all other swimmers left the water, and he sat on a rubber raft. As his teammates looked on, a life-guard pushed him once round the pool, reminding him, “whatever you do, don't touch the water.”

Racial integration came slowly but municipalities had lost their appetite for pool-building. Washington, DC, and New York City built 19 pools between them during the 1930s, but none at all between 1945 and 1960. The middle classes were getting their own pools in their backyards and attendance at public baths was falling. Why spend money on a service that only a few poor people used?

The eruption of America's inner cities in the years between 1964 and 1968 gave a compelling answer to that. Most of the 329 “black riots” of the time took place during the hot steamy nights of high summer. One of the most famous, in Chicago, started after teenagers were stopped from bathing in a fire hydrant they had opened. In the three days of rioting that followed, three people were killed and 300 arrested. The federal government splurged money on pool-building: New York City alone built 30 pools in the two years after 1966, and 84 by 1971.

It was a short-lived renaissance. Many northern cities ran out of money; pool managers faced new problems, including violence and vandalism. Americans turned to private pools, building 3m since 1970. A pity, in Mr Wiltse's nostalgic view. For all the pools' unfulfilled promise as social and ethnic levellers, there was nothing like a family swimming outing to leave a vivid childhood memory.

Edited June 1, 2007 by Guy

[Shawn]

When I was a kid I was living in Kansas, there was a massive heatwave through the midwest (circa 1980). It was getting up around 110 during the day and at night would cool to an unpleasant 98. The biggest selling item was air conditioners (they were sold out everywhere). We had some extras which we sold at auction for about 3 times their actual value. Anyway, on to the pool...

The town had a HUGE public pool and you wouldn't believe the number of people they managed to pack into that sucker during that heatwave. The shallow end of the pool was standing room only, you literally couldn't float because there wasn't enough room. The deep end was almost as bad with people treading water to stay cool...and this was during the week! The weekend was insane, you'd park about 1/2 mile from the pool and walk to get there...to stand in line for 30 minutes to get into the pool...which was so packed you couldn't even swim.

You would think the combination of the heat and the crowds would have led to flared tempers...but it was actually kind of like a big party. A good deal of social bonding went on at that pool (and I'm sure some unsavory elements as well, but I was 10 years old and unaware). It was just kind of a surreal experience. I went to that pool everyday during the following summers I lived there, but it was never the same "community" atmosphere once the heat wave passed.