Monday Madness-Swimsuits in Public

How times have changed! Since I live on the Gulf where we have miles of sandy beaches, we often see on our drive down the beach highway, ladies in barely there bikinis walking along the beach. It always makes me think about the not too distant past when ladies were arrested for showing too much skin in their bathing suits.

Some Bathing Suit Facts

• In the late 1800s, the first bathing suits appeared and consisted of padded bloomer pants made from wool or flannel, topped off with a knee-length dress, black wool stockings, shoes, and ruffled hats. The heavy fabric made it almost impossible to swim. 

• Up until the twentieth century, women who wanted to “swim” in the ocean could merely jump through the waves holding a rope attached to a buoy because their swimwear often weighed over 22 pounds. By 1915, women athletes began viewing swimming as a sport and, consequently, swimsuit fabric started to shrink.

•  Modesty laws were very strict in the early 1900s. In 1919, a woman was detained at Coney Island for wearing a bathing suit in public—under her street clothes.

• In the early 1900s, many American cities created laws that required all women in bathing suits to wear stockings.

• In 1907, when Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman wore a one-piece suit in Boston that revealed her arms and legs, she was promptly arrested for indecent exposure.

• In May 1917, the American Association of Park Superintendents published in its “Bathing Suit Regulations” that men’s suits should include a “skirt” worn outside the swimming trunks. Men could also wear flannel knee pants with a vest front.

•  In 1921, swimwear manufacturer Jantzen decided to change the term “bathing suit” to “swimming suit” to justify their more revealing swimsuits as a form of athleticism.