1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910964289803321

Autore

Wiltse Jeff

Titolo

Contested waters : a social history of swimming pools in America / / Jeff Wiltse

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chapel Hill, : University of North Carolina Press, c2007

ISBN

979-88-908811-3-7

979-88-9313-249-6

1-4696-0466-3

0-8078-8898-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (289 p.)

Disciplina

306.4/81

Soggetti

Swimming pools - Social aspects - United States

Swimming pools - United States - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-266) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : "just don't touch the water" -- A "peculiar kind" of bath : the origin of municipal pools in America -- "A means of physical culture" : the redefinition of municipal pools during the 1890s -- "A good investment in health, character, and citizenship" : municipal swimming pools in the Progressive Era -- Interlude : the traumatic early history of Fairgrounds Park Pool -- The "swimming pool age" : 1920 to 1940 -- "One for the white race and the other for the colored race" : the onset of racial discrimination, 1920 to 1940 -- "More sensitive than schools" : the struggle to desegregate municipal swimming pools -- "Alone in the backyard" : swimming pools in recent America -- Conclusion : the promise and reality of swimming pools as public spaces.

Sommario/riassunto

From nineteenth-century public baths to today's private backyard havens, swimming pools have long been a provocative symbol of American life. In this social and cultural history of swimming pools in the United States, Jeff Wiltse relates how, over the years, pools have served as asylums for the urban poor, leisure resorts for the masses, and private clubs for middle-class suburbanites. As sites of race riots, shrinking swimsuits, and conspicuous leisure, swimming pools reflect



many of the tensions and transformations that have given rise to modern America.