the force of the ocean waves with only a female companion, since prevailing attitudes regarding the proper behavior of a lady prevented them from being accompanied by a man. When a few ignored this dictate, their bold actions gave rise to “ill-founded stories of want of delicacy on the part of the females.”[16] An unbiased traveler, who gave an account of this mixed bathing in 1833, stated that parties always went into the water completely dressed and for that reason he could see no great violation of modesty. Mixed bathing at the seashore (fig. 3) was gaining acceptance, however, when it was reported only thirteen years later that “... ladies and gentlemen bathe in company, as is the fashion all along the Atlantic Coast....”[17]

Figure 3.—“Scene at Cape May,” Godey’s Lady’s Book, August 1849. (Courtesy of The New York Public Library.)

In place of the dressing rooms available in the floating baths, special facilities were frequently provided. The bathing machine—in this case a device in which one changed clothes—was used where there was a gentle slope down to the water. This species of bathing machine was a small wooden cabin set on very high wheels with steps leading down from a door in the front. The bather entered and, while he was changing, the machine was pulled into the sea by a horse. When water was well above the axles the horse was uncoupled and taken ashore. The bather was then free to enter the sea by descending the steps pointed away from the shore (fig. 4). Machines of the 18th and early 19th century were frequently equipped with an awning which shielded the bather from public view as she or he descended the steps to enter the water. These awnings were left off the bathing machines during the last half of the 19th century. Such machines were used to a great extent in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the United States, however, they were used only to a limited extent during the first half of the 19th century. By 1870 they had practically disappeared—being replaced by the stationary, sentry-box type of individual structure and the large communal bath house.

Figure 4.—“The Bathe at Newport,” by Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly Newspaper, September 1858.
(Smithsonian photo 59665.)

“Sentry-boxes” were used before the 1870s at beaches where the terrain did not encourage the use of the bathing machines. At Long Branch, New Jersey, and at one of the beaches at Newport, Rhode Island, lines of these stationary structures were available to the bather for changing, one half designated for women and the other half for men. Hours varied but it was the practice to run up colored flags to signal bathing times for the ladies and then the gentlemen. A male correspondent wrote from Newport in 1857:

From its early beginnings, in the late 18th and early 19th century, the summer excursion to the resorts and spas grew in popularity. In 1848, a writer of a Philadelphia fashion report explained that

As the summer excursion became a social event, the recreational possibilities of bathing overshadowed its earlier therapeutic function. Bathing became part of an increasingly elaborate schedule of activities where each event—bathing, dining, concerts, balls, promenades, carriage rides—had its appointed time, place, and proper costume.

In addition to stiff ocean breezes, seaside resorts had an extra appeal that beguiled visitors away from the spas—namely mixed bathing. For during the bathing hour at the seashore all the stiffness and etiquette of select society was abandoned to pleasure.

Thus bathing was transformed from a medicinal treatment to a pleasurable pursuit.

Excursionists had to be hardy individuals, firm in their resolve to complete their trip. Although many railroad lines had been completed by the 1850s, transportation problems were by no means solved. For example, a New York tourist who planned to enjoy a summer at Lake George had to travel by boat from New York City to Albany and Troy, then by railroad to Morean Corner, and, finally, by stage to the lake. After listing the difficulties endured by excursionists, a particularly embittered correspondent commented in 1856, “... we envy these happy people in nothing but the power to be idle.”[21]

By the 1870s, travel facilities were rapidly being improved and many new summer resorts were established which appealed to a larger segment of the population.

Beaches that