Contested Waters.(Brief article)

Publication: The New Yorker

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The first public swimming pools in the United States were "large community bath tubs"--indoors, relatively small, and intended to encourage good hygiene among the poor. By the nineteen-twenties, pools had become elaborate "public amusements," accommodating thousands. Wiltse's history argues that, at every turn, these sites of "intimate and prolonged...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.