The earliest reference to women's bathing costiune 

 has been quoted pre\iously in Winmann's amazing 

 description of mixed bathing at Zurich. He referred 

 to women, wearing only drawers, bathing with men 

 as a custom no longer practiced when he wrote his 

 book in 1538. 



One of the earliest illustrations of bathing costume 

 I have located is part of a painted fan leaf, about 

 1675, that was reproduced in volume 9 of Maurice 

 Leloir's Histoire du Costume de V Anti quite in 1914. In 

 one corner of this painting, which depicts a variety 

 of activities going on in the Seine and on the river 

 banks at Paris, women are shown immersing them- 

 selves in water within a covered wooden frame. They 

 are wearing loose, light-colored gowns and long 

 headdresses. An English sotirce of the late 1 7th century 

 described a very similar costume. 



The ladye goes into the bath with garments made of 

 yellow canvas, which is stiff and made large with great 

 sleeves like a parson's gown. The water fills it up so that 

 it's borne off that \"our shape is not seen, it does not cling 

 close as other lining.^ 



In the cotu-se of my contacts with other costume 

 historians I have encoimtered the belief that women 

 did not wear any bathing costiune before the mid- 19th 

 century. Supporting this theory I have seen a repro- 

 duction of a print, about 1812, showing women 

 bathing nude in the ocean at Margate, England, but 

 the evidence already presented indicates clearly that 

 costume was worn earlier. Also certain English second- 

 ary sources refer to a nondescript chemise type of 

 bathing dress that was w^orn din-ing the first quarter 

 of the 19th century. Because little study has been gi\en 

 European bathing costume, it is not possible to con- 

 jecture imder what circumstances costume was or was 

 not used. We do know, however, that when bathing 

 became popular in the new world bathing gowns 

 were worn by some women in the cild. 



Cultural Environment 



As many European cultural traits were trans- 

 mitted to the new world via England, so was the 

 introduction of water actix'ities. Nevertheless it 

 required a number of years for such cultural refine- 

 ments as bathing to take root in the new environment. 



The early colonists brought with them a limited 

 knowledge of swimming, but they did not have the 

 leisure to cultivate this skill. In New England the 

 Piu'itan religious and social beliefs were as restrictixe 

 as the lack of leisure time. In this harsh climate, 

 self-indulgence in swimming and bathing did not 

 fulfill the requirements of being righteous and useful. 

 Thus the growing popularity of bathing among the 

 wealthy in Evu'ope during the 17th and early 18th 

 centiu'ies had little initial impact in the new world. 

 Although swimming as a skill predated the intro- 

 duction of bathing to the new world, I will first 

 discuss bathing since the customs and facilities es- 

 tablished for it reveal the development of swinnning 

 in America, first for men and then for women. 



BATHING 



One ot the earliest sources showing an appreciation 

 of mineral waters for bathing in the new world is 

 a 1 748 reference in George Washington's diary to 

 the "fam'd Warm Springs." '" At that time only 

 open ground surrounded the springs which were 

 located within a dense forest. 



Another entry for July 31, 1769, records his depar- 

 ture with Mrs. Washington for these springs (now 

 known as Berkeley Springs, West Virginia) where 

 they stayed more than a month. They were accom- 

 panied by her daughter. Patsy Custis, who was 

 probably taken in hope of curing a form of epilepsy 

 with which she was afflicted. In the latter part of the 

 18th century hundreds of visitors annually flocked 

 to these springs. Although the accommodations were 

 primitixe, we early note that the avowed therapeutic 

 aims for xisiting these waters were very quickly 

 combined with a growing social life on diy land. 



Rude log huts, board and canvas tents, and even covered 

 wagons, served as lodging rooms, while every party 

 brought its own substantial provisions of flour, meat and 

 bacon, depending for lighter articles of diet on the "Hill 

 folk," or the success of their own foragers. A large hollow 

 scooped in the sand, surrounded by a screen of pine brush, 

 was the only bathing-house; and this was used alternately 

 by ladies and gentlemen. The time set apart for the ladies 

 was announced by a blast on a long tin horn, at xvhich 

 signal all of the opposite sex retired to a prescribed 

 distance, . . . Here day and night passed in a round of 



" CIelia Fiennes, Through England on Horseback, as quoted in 

 Iris Brooke and James Laver, English Coslnme from the Four- 

 teenth through the Mmeleenth Century (Ni-vv York: Tlie Macmillan 

 Company, 1937), p. 2,'52. 



'" George Washington, The Writings oj George Washington, 

 John C. Fitzpatrick, ed. (Washington: United States Congress, 

 1931), vol. l,p. 8. 



BULLETIN 250 : CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY .\ND TECHNOLOGY 



