Nude swimming in US indoor pools

Nude swimming in US indoor pools was common for men and boys from the late 1880s until the mid-1960s, declining until the end of the 80s. Male nude swimming outdoors had been customary in the early United States. In the 19th century, when urbanization made this "skinny-dipping" more publicly visible, indoor pools were built in part as a solution.

Nudity was rare in girls' swim classes because of the social norms of female modesty. Prepubescent boys might swim nude in the presence of female staff, family members, and spectators at public competitions.

The primary reason given by officials for nude swimming was public health, the technology for water purification being in development. Another reason was the clogging of pool filters by fibers shed by swimsuits with natural fabrics, most often wool. For male swimmers, both issues were easily addressed by forbidding swimsuits, while female swimmers wore cotton suits that could be steam-cleaned and shed fewer fibers. As the 20th century continued, more indoor pools were built by local governments, schools, and the YMCA to provide year-round swimming for exercise and sport.

During that period, public indoor pools were more prevalent in Midwest and Northeast states than in other areas of the country. Learn-to-swim programs were conducted in communities across the country to address the problem of drowning. Final sessions in these programs were sometimes open houses for families. On such occasions, younger swimmers might be nude while in the pool but wrap themselves in their towels otherwise, as shown in a newspaper photograph. In other locations, such as Massillon, Ohio boys were instructed to bring only towels for their lessons, but suits and towels for these open houses.

Male nude swimming in the US remained a common practice through the 1950s, but began to decline in the 1960s due to technological and social changes. In 1972, Title IX was passed; the law required gender equality in physical education. For swimming, coeducation became a solution to unequal access and facilities. This law did not take immediate effect due to uncertainty regarding policy, the Department of Education publishing clarification letters in later years.

Origins of swimming pools

The germ theory of disease replaced older theories of infection and illness during the 19th century in public awareness and medical practice. When the first pools were being built, the connection between cleanliness and health was just being made in public health policy and personal habits.

"Swimming baths" and pools were built in the late 19th century in poorer neighborhoods of northern industrial cities of the US to exert some control over a public swimming culture that offended Victorian sensibilities by including nakedness, roughhousing, and swearing. Such behavior had become an issue in the 18th century, but laws prohibiting public indecency had little effect. Naked swimmers from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to New York City, primarily boys and young men, ignored the laws and sometimes flaunted themselves intentionally in view of more upper-class passers-by.

Beginning in 1870, the first public swimming facilities in New York City were outdoor "floating baths" made of wood surrounded by docks that allowed river water to flow through them. In addition to health and hygiene, they were intended to prevent drowning in the open river, a frequent occurrence. As urban river water quality declined, floating baths became a source of infection. Building indoor pools and adding pools to bathhouses were done to address this problem. Since few swimmers in these neighborhoods could afford swimsuits or wanted to wear them, nudity among males was taken for granted.

Historian Jeff Wiltse writes that in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and Milwaukee during the Progressive Era (1896–1917), indoor and outdoor municipal pools were segregated by gender and class, but often not by race. In working-class neighborhoods, the white residents were mainly recent immigrants. The pools were for health and exercise, and used by male and female swimmers on alternate days. The outdoor pools were surrounded by a high wall to provide privacy. Women and girls wore bathing costumes; men and boys usually went without. The YMCA pools, which charged a fee and excluded women, were used by middle-class swimmers. The upper classes swam at private health clubs, which were also male-only.

At the beginning of the 20th century, nudity for the wealthiest men in New York City was the norm at the University Club, the Yale Club on Vanderbilt Avenue, the Racquet and Tennis Club and the New York Athletic Club on Central Park South. Nude swimming ended after a law was passed in the 1980s banning discrimination against women at private clubs. Nude swimming at the San Francisco Press Club was ended by a court order in 1988. In 1991, when there were only two women in the US Senate, they avoided the gym and the swimming pool where some of the male members continued to swim nude.

Mining companies provided housing for workers and their families, who shared a bathhouse with separate sections for men, women, and children, as they did not have private bathrooms at the turn of the 20th century. The bathhouse built by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in Michigan, which opened in 1910, included a swimming pool, as suggested by Progressive reformist literature. Men and boys swam without suits. Women and girls were allocated only 10 hours per week to use the pool, compared to 47 for men and 13 hours for boys. Children were defined as girls under 12 and boys under 10, who had to be accompanied by an adult female.

Indoor pools were most common in the Northeast and Midwest. In southern and western states, learn-to-swim programs popular in the 1940s were conducted in outdoor pools where all swimmers brought their own suits: Phoenix, Arizona (1940 and 1947); Miami, Florida (1947); Owensboro, Kentucky (1949); St. Louis, Missouri (1941 and 1949); Raleigh, North Carolina (1946) and Nashville, Tennessee (1941).

Public health recommendations

As early as 1914, professionals addressed the problem of maintaining pool water quality due to the prevalence of waterborne diseases, including typhoid, dysentery, pneumonia, and eye and ear infections. Initially, civil engineers recommended nudity in indoor pools for all swimmers, male and female, where such rules could be enforced. While this was generally accepted for men, it was true for only some pools when used by women. Fibers from suits clogging pool filters were also given as a reason for nudity. Fibers from wool suits were a greater problem, which was remedied by supplying cotton suits for use by female swimmers.

In the 1920s, close monitoring of swimmers in public pools was based upon their being from the working class, having generally poor hygiene, and often living in tenements with no bath facilities. Officially, municipal pools were built in working-class neighborhoods to provide such facilities, while YMCAs charged an entry or membership fee that excluded the lower classes, black and white. In 1926, the American Public Health Association (APHA) standards handbook recommended that indoor swimming pools used by men adopt nude bathing policies and that indoor swimming pools used by women require swimsuits "of the simplest type".

In 1939, the swimming coach and college athletics administrator Fred Luehring surveyed the issues and made similar recommendations, advising that men and boys should continue to swim nude, and tests of water quality showed the advantage over pools where suits are allowed. He noted the problem of water quality following pool use by female swimmers, not only due to suits being worn but their avoidance of taking a nude shower before entering the pool by showering in their suits.

In 1940, V. T. Trusler suggested that female swimmers be required to hang their suits over the door of shower stalls to prevent showering in them, and be inspected in order to avoid wearing undergarments with bathing suits. Suits for male swimmers were called unnecessary. The wool suits worn by male swimmers continued to be recognized as a source of water contamination. Cotton suits supplied by facilities for female swimmers were a lesser problem because they could be boiled to decontaminate them. Wool suits cannot be boiled or heated above 105 degrees Fahrenheit without shrinkage. Wool suits used in salt water cannot be washed effectively, as soap does not lather due to salt residue.

In 1941, reviewing the steps taken to maintain good hygiene in pools, H. W. Craig, supervisor of swimming at the University of Illinois, favored the continued conduct of physical education swimming programs for men not wearing suits, and for women using cotton suits supplied by the schools that could be steam cleaned. Problems arose when recreational swimmers used their own suits and avoided showering before entering the pool, which had become more frequent with the movement toward "corecreational" swimming.

From 1926 until 1962, every edition of the APHA guidelines recommended nude swimming for males. Given the limits of chlorination and filtration at that time, behavioral measures were also used to maintain water quality. In addition to recommending nudity, all bathers were required to empty their bladders and shower nude before entering the pool. Those suffering from skin or respiratory disease were prohibited from using the pool.

While finding the same public health issues, the National Environmental Health Association recommendations in 1956 included swimmers taking nude showers and wearing only suits laundered and sterilized by the facility, but not mandatory nude swimming.

Outside the United States during the same period, hygiene issues were recognized, but close supervision of swimmers and control of bathing suits could be an alternative to nudity. In Canada, public health recommendations allowed for suits, but nudity was recommended in pools used exclusively by men. A brochure sent to parents of children in the Toronto, Ontario, school system in 1963 stated that boys participating in the summer education program could swim in bathing trunks or nude. At YMCA pools in Ontario, nudity predominated from the 1960s to as late as the 1990s in some locations. A factor in the change was hiring women lifeguards for male classes. In England, it was recommended that suits for both men and women be inspected and stored by the facility.

Racial segregation During the interwar period, 1918–1939, when many more pools were constructed, public schools and recreation facilities were segregated in the United States, de jure until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or de facto due to residential patterns. In some cities segregation was maintained by violence against black swimmers who attempted to enter pools.

Prior to the 1960s, the YMCA built separate facilities in black and white neighborhoods. The first black YMCA with a pool was the Twelfth Street YMCA in Washington, DC which was completed in 1912. Swimming nude was required, but did not appeal to all. In the 1940s, a Washington Evening Star article emphasized knowing how to swim being a defense asset as well as a safety measure, while also noting that "colored" boys could register at the 12th Street Y for their lessons rather than at the 1732 G Street YMCA, a block from the White House.