'Girls who arouse dangerous passions': Women and bathing, 1900-39

Women's History Review

Volumn 9, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 653-673

  Horwood, Catherine ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247317037     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020000200265     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. Billie Melman (1988) Women and the Popular Imagination in the 1920s, p. 17 (New York: St Martin's).
2. Liz Stanley (1988) 'Historical Sources for Studying Work and Leisure in Women's Lives', in Erica Wimbush & Margaret Talbot (Eds) Relative Freedoms: women and leisure, p. 19 (Milton Keynes: Open University Press).
3. Karla Henderson et al (Eds) (1989) A Leisure of One's Own. A Feminist Perspective on Women's Leisure, p. 20 (State City PA: Venture)
4. and Andrew Davies (1992) Leisure, Gender and Poverty, p. 55 (Milton Keynes: Open University Press).
5. For general ungendered reviews, see James Walvin (1978) Leisure and Society 1930-50 (London: Longman);
6. Alun Howkins & John Lowerson (1979) Trends in Leisure (London: Sports Council).
7. Davies, Leisure, Gender and Poverty, pp. 55-81.
8. See also Rosemary Deem (1986) All Work and No Play? The Sociology of Women and Leisure (Milton Keynes: Open University Press).
9. See Nicola Beauman (1995) A Very Great Profession (London: Virago) and Alison Light (1991) Forever England. Femininity, Literature and Conservatism between the Wars (London: Routledge).
10. See Greer Litton Fox (1977) 'Nice Girl': social control of women through a value construct, Signs, 2, pp. 805-817.ikml
11. Eric Hobsbawm (1994) Mass-producing Traditions. Europe, 1870-1914, in Eric Hobsbawm & Terence Ranger (Eds) The Invention of Tradition, p. 299 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
12. Sheila Fletcher (1985) The Making and Breaking of a Female Tradition: women's physical education in England 1880-1980, British Journal of Sports History, 2, p. 29.
13. Kathleen McCrone (1988) Sport and the Physical Emancipation of Women, p. 277 (London: Routledge).
14. See Sheila Fletcher (1984) Women First. The Female Tradition in English Physical Education 1880-1980 (London: Athlone Press).
15. Jennifer Hargreaves (1979) Playing like Gentlemen while Behaving Like Ladies: the social significance of physical activity for females in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, unpublished MA thesis, University of London Institute of Education, p. 42.
16. See Amanda Vickery (1993) Golden Age to Separate Spheres: a review of the categories and chronology of English women's history, Historical Journal, 36, pp. 383-414.
17. John Hargreaves (1986) Sport, Power and Culture, p. 75 (Cambridge: Polity Press).
18. Norbert Elias (1978) The Civilising Process, p. 178 (Oxford: Blackwell).
19. See Katrina Rolley (1990) Fashion, Femininity and the Fight for the Vote, Art History, 13, pp. 47-71.
20. See Katrina Bill (1993) Attitudes towards Women's Trousers: Britain in the 1930s, Journal of Design History, 6, pp. 45-53.
21. J.C. Flugel (1930) The Psychology of Clothes, p. 107 (London: Hogarth Press).
22. Jennifer Craik (1994) The Face of Fashion, p. 136 (London: Routledge).
23. Barbara A. Schreier (1989) Sporting Wear, in Claudia Brush Kidwell & Valerie Steele (Eds) Men and Women. Dressing the Part, pp. 116-117 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute).
24. Powers to regulate public bathing stem from the Public Health Act, 1875. Section 60 of Town Police Clauses Act 1847 also gave District Councils powers to control stands or bathing machines on shore, and the limits within which persons of either sex shall be set down for bathing, and prevent indecent exposure.
25. Helen Meller (1976) Leisure and the Changing City, pp. 114-115 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
26. Archibald Sinclair & W. Henry (1906) Swimming, pp. 382-384 (London: Longmans, Green).
27. Hargreaves, 'Playing like Gentlemen', p. 77.
28. In 1910, the committee in charge of Dulwich Baths had rejected such a motion by one vote. Penelope Bird (1986) Making A Splash: a history of Dulwich Baths, pp. 22-23 (London: Spencer Mills).
29. E. Harding Payne (1912) Suggestions on the General Arrangements, Structure and Equipment of Public Swimming Baths and Bathing Places (London: Southern Counties Amateur Swimming Association).
30. Agnes Campbell (1918) Report on Public Baths & Washhouses in the United Kingdom, p. 64, and Addenda to Section M, n.p. (Edinburgh: Carnegie Trust).
31. Daily Mail, 29 January 1901, p. 6.
32. Southern Counties ASA Centenary Brochure (1989), p. 6.
33. Ralph Thomas (1904) Swimming, p. 113 (London: Sampson Low, Marston).
34. ASA Handbook (1910). This regulation stayed in place until 1936.
35. Sarah Howell (1978) The Seaside, p. 118 (London: Studio Vista).
36. Lena Lencek & Gideon Bosker (1998) The Beach, p. 191 (London: Secker & Warburg).
37. See Annette Kellerman (1919) How to Swim (London: Heinemann).
38. V. Montague & H. Montague (1916) When Maud Put Her New Bathing Costume On (London: Francis, Day & Hunter).
39. Daily Mail, 31 July 1913, p. 3.
40. Elizabeth Wilson & Lou Taylor (1989) Through the Looking Glass, p. 73 (London: BBC).
41. Daily Mail, 30 July 1912, p. 5.
42. Angela Holdsworth (1988) Out of the Doll's House, p. 166 (London: BBC).
43. Wilson & Taylor, Through the Looking Glass, p. 84.
44. Anthony Hern (1967) The Seaside Holiday, p. 174 (London: Cresset Press).
45. Daily Mail, 23 July 1920, p. 7.
46. Lencek & Bosker, The Beach, p. ixx.
47. Eastbourne Gazette, 18 September 1929, p. 1.
48. Eastbourne Gazette, 2 October 1929, p. 1, and 11 September 1929, p. 13.
49. Daily Mail, 25 September 1929, p. 7.
50. Valerie Steele (1985) Fashion and Eroticism, p. 239 (New York: Oxford University Press).
51. Christina Probert (1981) Swimwear in Vogue, p. 16 (London: Thames & Hudson).
52. Making a Splash: 100 Years of Bathing Clothes at the Museum of Costume, Bath (1984) (Bath: Bath City Council).
53. Men traditionally swam naked until the nineteenth century. Only the arrival of female audiences prompted a male bathing dress to develop. See Thomas, Swimming, pp. 107-109
54. and Richard Rutt (1990) The Englishman's Swimwear, Costume, 24, pp. 69-84.
55. Ross McKibbin (1998) Classes and Cultures. England 1918-1951, p. 367 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
56. Swimming Times, October 1930, p. 301.
57. The Times, July 1930, p. 191.
58. The Times, February 1932, p. 11.
59. - (1982) Taking the Plunge: the architecture of bathing pp. 22-25 (London: Save Britain's Heritage);
60. Ian Parker, Last of the Lidos, Independent Magazine, 4 July 1992, p. 32.
61. For a breakdown of the facilities available at the Serpentine, see Catherine Horwood (1998) 'Girls Who Arouse Dangerous Passions' or 'Wet Scotch Terriers'?: attitudes to female bathers 1900-1939, unpublished MA dissertation, Royal Holloway University of London, p. 33.
62. Robert Graves & Alan Hodge (1940; 1995) The Long Weekend, p. 382 (London: Abacus);
63. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 382.
64. Daily Mail, 9 July 1930, p. 8.
65. Schreier, 'Sporting Wear', p. 117.
66. See also Hannah Andrassy (1996-97) Spinning a Golden Thread. The Introduction of Elastic into Swimwear, Things, 5, p. 80.
67. Jennifer Hargreaves, 'Playing like Gentlemen while Behaving Like Ladies': contradictory features of the formative years of women's sport, British Journal of Sports History, 2, p. 46.
68. Peter Gurney (1997) 'Intersex' and 'Dirty Girls': Mass-Observation and the working-class sexuality in the 1930s, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 8, pp. 256-290.
69. Over half a million people were in Blackpool on August Bank Holiday Monday, 1937. John Stevenson (1984) British Society 1914-45, p. 393 (London: Penguin).
70. Howkins & Lowerson, Trends in Leisure, p. 2.
71. The cult of 'air-bathing' (sunbathing nude for health reasons) as promoted by leading nudist, George Ryley Scott (1939) in The Story of Baths and Bathiny, pp. 224-229 (London: T. Werner Laurie).
72. See also Bertram Park & Yvonne Gregory (1935) Sun Bathers (London: Routledge).
73. Jill Julius Matthews (1990) They Had Such a Lot of Fun: the Women's League of Health and Beauty between the Wars, History Workshop Journal, 30, p. 26.
74. Mother and Daughter, 2, 14 June 1935, p. 9.
75. See Anne Griswold (1998) Kenwood Ladies' Bathing Pond(London).
76. Elizabeth Wilson (1985) Adorned in Dreams. Fashion and Modernity, p. 171 (London: Virago).
77. Jane Gaines (1990) Fabricating the Female Body, in Jane Gaines & Charlotte Herzog (Eds) Fabrications. Costume and the Female Body, p. 21 (London: Routledge).
78. Andrassy, 'Spinning a Golden Thread', pp. 59-85.
79. See also Patricia Cunningham (1986) Swimwear in the 1930s: the BVD Company in a decade of innovation, Dress, 12, pp. 11-27.
80. Worthing, Bathing Costumes.
81. Eric Gill (1931) Clothes, p. 190 (London: Jonathan Cape).
82. Gill, Clothes, p. 169.
83. See, for example, National Museum of Photography, Film and Theatre, Daily Herald Original Negative A7482 and BB65/1 SO/0285, unidentified photographer, c. 1914.