ABSTRACT
Whether in rivers, lakes, the ocean, or swimming pools a refreshing dip has long been a part of warm weather. On the surface at least, recreational swimming seems to be ingrained as a perennial pastime for Americans and Canadians—a relatively carefree use for water for all to enjoy. The premier historian of the social history of swimming pools, Jeff Wiltse, argued that in the nineteenth-century North “swimming divided along several social lines, the most conspicuous being gender.” Municipal pools were first constructed during the last 30 years of the nineteenth century as public baths, as a way for middle-class reformers to promote cleanliness and refinement among the urban poor. During the late 1960s, there was a renewed but short surge of public pool building.
