Learning to Swim: A Murky History, Filtered

Annie Pellant 05/05/23

The slap of feet on tile or the squeak of sinking into sand mingles with splashes and screams of joy as children and adults alike enjoy the wonders of the aquatic. It is a modern rite of passage, a fond childhood memory of swim lessons on the weekend. Contemporary depictions of swimming may lead people today to believe that it has always been an integral and joyful aspect of American society. The truth however turns those fond sounds into screams slipping into gurgles, whistles blown, and unpleasant shouting. Throughout modern American history, swimming has taken many forms but it has always had an air of fear regarding death and sociocultural shifts. This fear reached a boiling point in the 20th century and contributed greatly to the evolution of swimming. Bringing us to the modern recollection of swimming as foundational to a child’s education as riding a bike or learning times tables.

Until the 20th Century, swimming was a recreational sport played by men and boys looking to cool off, exercise, and have fun. Among supporters of swimming in colonial times was Benjamin Franklin, who wrote of the matter in an undated letter before 1769, “I wish all men were taught to [swim] in their youth; they would, on many occurrences, be the safer for having that skill, and on many more the happier, as freer from painful apprehensions of danger, to say nothing of the enjoyment in so delightful and wholesome an exercise” (1). Franklin’s words reflect much of the attitude toward swimming in the 18th and 19th centuries and reveal the singularity of swimming as an uncommon and exclusive event. It was an activity reserved for young working-class boys and men who invaded local rivers, bays, and lakes to swim around naked, fight, swear, and challenge authority. To control these “raucous youngsters”, cities instituted various laws and ordinances to limit and altogether prohibit swimming (2). A 1786 ordinance was passed in Boston prohibiting swimming on Sundays as swimmers, particularly boys, were “prophaning” the Lord’s Day (3). New York forbade day swimming in the East River in 1808 due to swimmers being “extremely offensive to spectators” (4).

A card from the 1889 Duke’s Cigarettes Terrors of America

A 1900 feature article in The New York Times shares a particularly disruptive event that took place between some boys illegally swimming during the day, and a nearby policeman. As the story goes, a group of “big boys” were having some fun in the East River, “diving and splashing around, having water fights and making no small commotion” when a policeman appeared and yelled for the boys to get out of the water. The policeman was met with mocking shouts and taunts from the boys which quickly dissipated as they disappeared. Confused, the policeman stepped closer to inspect where they had swam off to, but was surprised when a massive spray of water splashed over him. He was startled so strongly he dropped his hat into the river which was quickly snatched by a disembodied hand and pulled beneath the surface and the policeman fled the scene. During this event, some big boys say two younger boys around seven or eight years old dipping their feet in the water. After conspiring, the big boys dragged the little ones into the water, stripped them of their shirtwaists, and knickerbockers, and began dunking them. After some time, it became clear that the big boys were teaching the little boys how to swim. (5)

This feature article reveals two importances to historians regarding swimming during this time. First, 18th/19th-century swimmers largely garnered attention for their deviance from the rigid moral code set by the Victorian era. One of strict modesty and proper rapport. They were seemingly ahead of their time in breaking down the old Victorian model which ramped up for most of America during the 20th Century (6). Second, the teaching of swimming was done so informally, roughly, and by individuals who knew the skill themselves and desired to pass down the skill to a younger pupil. There are published scholarships of instruction for learning the art of swimming, but it is unclear how many learned from books or through word of mouth, hands-on instruction. Scientific Swimming published by author J. Frost in 1816 reinforced the characterization of swimming, swimmers, and learning to swim in his address to parents and guardians:

“If it is the intention of any to keep boys entirely from the water, I would ask these, have you not found all your authority, and all your vigilance, incapable of repressing their desires, and deterring them from going to bathe? Besides, how many accidents occur in life, for which they will be wholly unprepared… their lives rendered less secure, and their pleasures greatly diminished, through misguided caution or neglect! ” (7)

Frost recognizes the rebellious nature of young swimmers and encourages the guardians to contribute to their education in swimming rather than continue to ineffectively repress their desires. He also refers to the dangerous nature of swimming which makes a well-learned understanding of swimming imperative to the survival of the individual. The 20th century marks a turning point in the attitudes and actions regarding learning to swim which can be greatly attributed to early catastrophic accounts of death due to drowning which further drive a survivalist perspective of learning to swim.

On June 19th, 1904, the Gen. Slocum steamboat left its New York City dock with over 1,300 members of St. Mark’s German Lutheran Church. It would never return to the dock, setting fire shortly after 9 a.m. resulting in approximately 1,000 deaths, mostly women and children. Survivor testimonials recounted, “With sure death from fire behind, the women… waited until the flames were upon them, until they felt their flesh blister, before they took the alternative of the river”(8). Why would women delay their launch into the river to the degree of blistering burns? A few reasons can be offered, the first, and most obvious is panic. Women watched as other women drowned in front of their eyes after jumping into the river to escape the fire. Second, the common garb of an early 20th-century lady is not conducive to staying afloat, with heavy fabrics and multiple layers of clothing adorning their bodies.

The Gen. Slocum Disaster

Woman wearing a hat and holding eyeglasses, 1904

Even if these women had excellent swimming skills, they would have been drowned by the weight of their clothes in minutes, which leads to the third discernible reason. Most if not all of the women and children on that ship did not know how to swim and were severely disabled by this fact when in peril. This tragedy shook the German-American community in the Lower East Side and the rest of the city of New York to the core. New York Times coverage remarked, “The disaster stands unparalleled among those of its kind. Whole families have been wiped out. In many instances, a father is left to grieve alone for his, wife and children, and there was hardly a home in the parish, whence but a few hours before a laughing happy crowd went on its holiday, that was not in deep mourning last night”(8). This was a disaster of new levels for the country and it instilled an even greater sense of fear and danger towards swimming. This was likely only reinforced by the more infamous, sinking of the Titanic in April of 1912. Rather than instituting even harsher laws on swimming or banning the act altogether, a new emphasis on learning to swim emerged.

In 1909, the YMCA launched a campaign “to teach every man and boy in North America to swim,". Swimming enthusiast George Corsan arrived in Detroit in 1909 and taught the first official group swimming lesson in America. He revolutionized the world of swim lessons, making significant contributions to teaching Americans how to swim. In just four weeks, he taught 800 boys to swim in Newark, NJ. This popularity for swim lessons was strong, but slow for women and people of color. The YMCA was an organization exclusive to Christian men and boys so women were not allowed to take these group swim lessons until 1950. People of color had limited access to YMCAs and as a result, also lagged in learning to swim (9).

Skeptics may argue that it was not in fact the peril of a water catastrophe that spurred the 20th-century importance of learning to swim, but the opening of municipal pools and the eventual integration of women and people of color. However, while those two historical nuggets are a vital piece of this history, the Slocum steamboat tragedy opened man and women’s eyes to the invaluable knowledge of learning to swim. It was then when everyone had the opportunity to learn and be included, that swimmers could focus on the sociocultural problems regarding learning to swim.

In 1918 when Frank Eugen Dalton published Swimming Scientifically Taught, he made learning to swim more accessible to those who could not take official lessons. Dalton reinforces the theory of fear driving the importance of swimming in the 20th century by referencing the Gen. Slocum disaster in an early section of his book, calling it, “a melancholy example of what better knowledge of swimming might have done to save the lives of passengers”. He continues to explain that the loss of life would have been greatly diminished had all of the passengers known even the basics of swimming survival skills. Approximately 20% of the U.S. population knew how to swim when Dalton’s instructional book was published (10). His passion for teaching Americans how to swim came at an important time, for America was on the cusp of a gilded age of swimming. This gilded age tied swimming and learning to swim to the presence of municipal pools for the time being.

Between 1920 and 1940, swimming was integrated into the lives of American citizens of all economic classes. Municipal pools were redesigned to appeal to a more middle-class group turning into resorts with beaches and placing them in parks rather than residential slums like early pools. Pools in the interwar years reshaped the culture of swimming and democratized the swimming pool causing millions of people–women, men, and children– to swarm these resorts (11).

Hartzog, Justin R. (Justin Richardson), 1892-1963. Detail Views of The Waters of San Antonio Planned Resort. 1935-04-18. Justin R. Hartzog papers; 2407; Archives; Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library; 2; https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM02407.html. https://jstor.org/stable/community.551156.

These two decades marked a time in which supervised play was introduced to police children, the result of reformers who abhorred kids running wild and using the city as their playground (12). In 1934 the National Recreation Association released a report on the leisure hours of 5,000 people. Among the top 10 most popular leisure activities, swimming was no. 7 (13). Unlike most other things in America during the 1930s, the production of pools and the act of swimming were not greatly inhibited by the Great Depression. As part of the New Deal, pools were included in efforts to provide labor to unemployed Americans through the Civil Works Administration in 1933 and then the Works Progress Administration in 1935 (14). This pool craze brought swimming to the forefront of American minds, and with it, concerns about safety.

Federal Art Project, Sponsor. Learn to swim campaign Classes for all ages forming in all pools / / Wagner. New York, None. [New york: new york city w.p.a. art project, between 1936 and 1940] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98516763/.

In 1936 the Department of Parks launched an annual “Learn to Swim” campaign however the exclusionary nature of this campaign pushed the importance of learning to swim in the background. The original poster to advertise this campaign highlighted a key factor to include in the historical retelling of learning to swim in America: racism. The poster depicts a swimmer ready to dive into the water and two distinct groups of swimming pupils in the background. They are separated not by sex, but by race with the tagline “Classes for all ages/Forming in all pools” (15). While pools during the 1920s and 1930s were democratized and inclusive of sexes and classes, that was not the case for Black Americans. In regions with southern heritage, segregation was ordered by law, and pools were either whites only or Blacks only. Northern states opted for de facto segregation by placing pools in racially homogenous areas. Like all forms of racism in America, this segregation of pool decks was fed by fear. In this instance, white Americans enforced segregation on the grounds of race-based sanitation and health concerns as well as fears surrounding sex integration stemming from harmful stereotypes of Black men. (16)

During the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, pools were segregated on class lines as middle- and upper-class Americans viewed the entirety of the poor as unclean. As ethnic whites were included in the “white” category due to fears surrounding white replacement theory, Blacks became the sole group to be regarded as unclean. This resulted in a sociocultural shift to bi-racialism or the bifurcation of racial categories into blackness and whiteness. Also playing into white replacement theory, this social reconstruction allowed whites to control white women’s social and sexual interactions with Black men. They did so because pools were already integrated by sex, if they were to integrate by race, Black men would act upon their untamed sexual desire for white women and subsequently assault and harass them (16). This false stereotype was extremely harmful and the integration of it in something as leisurely as public swimming proves how deeply it has been and continues to be ingrained in American society, government, and consciousness.

17. “Mayor Restores Old Swim Rules; Disturbances in Fairground Park,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 22, 1949.

Post-WWII clarity– the “tabooization” of blatant racism due to Nazi Germany’s horrific regime–led the charge to desegregate municipal pools and reintegrate the act of swimming. Like most desegregation efforts, it was a slow and fraught process full of violence and hate speech. Throughout the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, municipal pools did desegregate, however, everything did not find a new normal. On July 21, 1949, a riot incited by an announcement to desegregate St. Lois pools resulted in the stabbing of a Black man and a white youth and the injury of 10 others. This resulted in major backsliding of desegregation laws in St. Louis as the mayor re-segregated public pools as a response to the violence that took place (17). This is only one example of the violence that was a testament to the attitudes whites had about the desegregation of pools. As pools integrated, a white flight took place as middle- and upper-class white families swam straight out of public pools and straight into private and backyard ones. This was the final nail in the coffin of the gilded age of swimming.

The suburbanization of America sent white families to organize communities out of the city and did so with government support. With lots of money leaving cities, the activity of swimming was divorced from municipal pools and individualized once more. White suburban families funneled their money into private recreational pools called swim clubs which became a space to learn to swim. While the importance of learning to swim fell quiet amongst the justifiably loud fight for racial justice, it reemerged in full during the 1980s and remained in the consciousness of Americans. Fear was still a driving force to encourage people, especially parents to prioritize learning to swim. This is evident through various government posters which were circulated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. The designs are friendly and alluring at first with bright colors and fun animals, however, the copywriting is a grim reminder of what can happen if one is not safe in the water. The following two posters are a bit more blatant in their messaging.

United States Army Corps of Engineers. Never Swim Alone. 1989,1990. https://jstor.org/stable/community.32676046.

United States Army Corps of Engineers, "Learn to Swim--Beach Toys Won't Save You" (1987). U.S. Government Posters. 100. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/government_posters/100

United States Army Corps of Engineers. Watch Children: Your Safety, Our Concern. 2015-04-20. https://jstor.org/stable/community.32676052.

Today in the 21st century, swimming lessons are still heavily privatized, perpetuating the division of access and quality on economic grounds. Consumerism has encouraged this privatization of swim lessons to the point that hot tub companies are convincing parents to spend a little extra to get private lessons in the comfort of their backyard. But, of course, they have to buy a $20,000-$40,000 swim spa too (18). Racial disparities in learning to swim continue, but increased racial consciousness has led to more attention on filling the gap. Organizations like USA Swimming have programs focused on diversifying swimming lessons to instigate the generational learning and value of swimming in Black families, which were afforded to white families far earlier in history(19).

Other efforts to re-democratize swim lessons have emerged recently with the institution of “learn-to-swim” laws such as the Every Child a Swimmer law in Florida which mandate schools to have swim lesson programs (20). Not only would this help lower drowning rates which have consistently remained one of the top causes of death for young children throughout American history, but it would also make swimming more accessible and mend economic and racial gaps (21).

Much like the water that modern Americans have swam in for centuries, the history of learning to swim is murky and full of unanswered questions. All that is necessary is a filter to weed out the gunk and to realize that it is actually quite clear. Learning to swim has always gone hand in hand with fear and peril. It is a dangerous activity, one that has killed millions of people since colonial times, but it is also freeing and community-building, and good for you when you know how to navigate it. If the early 20th century did not contain one of the most fatal and preventable catastrophic events in history, then swimming would have stayed a men’s recreational activity for far longer. There would not have been as much of a necessity for everyone to learn to swim. Something as leisurely as swimming can unearth some of the richest and most vital aspects of our American history. The sociocultural consequences of exclusion of people based on race and gender, the economic disparities that disproportionately impact people of color. The history of communal, public paces which has dissipated in our modern consumerist society. All of this can be uncovered through learning how the doggy-paddle turned into the crawl, and how the back float became the dive.

Footnotes

Benjamin Franklin, “Founders Online: From Benjamin Franklin to o[Liver] n[Eave, before 1769],” National Archives and Records Administration (National Archives and Records Administration), accessed April 15, 2023, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-15-02-0169.
Jeff Wiltse, “Chapter 1: A ‘Peculiar Kind’ of Bath,” in Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), pp. 22-23.
“Boston, By-Laws and Town-Orders,” in Jeff Wiltse, Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), p. 23.
“New York, Laws and Ordinances” in Jeff Wiltse, Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), p. 23.
“CHERRY HILL SWIMMERS; What Spring Means to Pier-Haunting East Side Boys,” New York Times, May 27, 1900, p. 8.
Brooke Blower. “Boys Will Be Boys.” Lecture, February 9, 2023.
J. Frost, “Scientific Swimming; Being a Series of Practical Instructions, on an Original and Progressive Plan, by Which the Art of Swimming May Be Readily Attained, with Every Advantage of Power in the Water. Accompanied with Twelve Copper-Plate Engravings ..,” in Scientific Swimming; Being a Series of Practical Instructions, on an Original and Progressive Plan, by Which the Art of Swimming May Be Readily Attained, with Every Advantage of Power in the Water. Accompanied with Twelve Copper-Plate Engravings .. (London: Printed for the author, by Darton, Harvey, and Darton, 1816), p. vi.
“1,000 Lives May Be Lost in Burning of the Excursion Boat Gen. Slocum,” The New York Times, June 15, 1904.
“1900-1999,” YMCA, https://www.ymca.org/who-we-are/our-history/1900s#content-4715.
Louis C. Dalton and Frank Eugen Dalton, “Introduction - The Importance of Swimming,” in Swimming Scientifically Taught a Practical Manual for Young and Old, 5th ed. (Project Gutenberg, 2006).
Jeff Wiltse, “Chapter 4: The ‘Swimming Pool Age’,” in Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), pp. 101-102.
Brooke Blower. “Learning to Play.” Lecture, February 2, 2023
“The Leisure Hours of 5,000 People,” 1934, p. 10.
Jeff Wiltse, “Chapter 4: The ‘Swimming Pool Age’,” in Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), pp. 105-106.
Federal Art Project, Sponsor. Learn to swim campaign Classes for all ages forming in all pools / / Wagner. New York, None. [New york: new york city w.p.a. art project, between 1936 and 1940] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98516763/.
Jeff Wiltse, “Chapter 5: ‘One for the White Race and the Other for the Colored Race,” in Contested Waters a Social History of Swimming Pools in America (Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2007), pp. 134-166.
“Mayor Restores Old Swim Rules; Disturbances in Fairground Park,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 22, 1949.
“Master Spas,” Master Spas (blog), May 14, 2021, https://www.masterspas.com/blog/are-private-swim-lessons-worth-it/.
Most Black Kids Can’t Swim. It’s Not Just A Stereotype — It’s History, YouTube (YouTube, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdCc0G4g_9U&ab_channel=VICENews.
Rebecca Robledo, “Groups Seek Learn-to-Swim Laws Nationwide - Aquatics International,” Aquatics International (Aquatics International, June 21, 2022), https://www.aquaticsintl.com/facilities/groups-seek-learn-to-swim-laws-nationwide_o.

Elizabeth Heubeck, “Swim Lessons Save Lives. Should Schools Provide Them?,” Education Week (Education Week, May 4, 2023), https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/swim-lessons-save-lives-should-schools-provide-them/2023/05.

About Annie

Annie was born in St. Paul, MN, and has moved almost every 4 years of her life since she was six. She comes from a big family and is very close with her parents and siblings, a product of creative parenting, lots of inside jokes, storytelling, and a strong sense of adventure. A sophomore at BU, Annie is an American Studies major and loves having the freedom to explore her various interests in psychology, politics, pop culture, media (and more!). As a child, Annie was large and in charge, always performing for her friends and family, and regularly being reminded to use her powers for good not evil.

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