The Lying App

wait, so women couldn't swim but had to wade in the dark inside of one of these contraptions?

I think I prefer the crowded topless French beaches ;)

"these caravans of propriety, of social mores too foreign for our contemporary eyes,"

Huh? Haven't this writer heard of the separate beaches for Muslim men and women and seen some of the Muslim bathing outfits for women?

Social norms from the past seem absurd. I'm sure future humans will look at our norms and think they're absurd too.

The concept of going to the beach and wading or swimming was new at the time. Something that a lot of people glaze over is that these are not the social norms for the past in general, but the Victorian period in particular. We got a lot more modest in the Victorian period than we were in centuries past, the pendulum of social modesty and permissiveness swings back and forth.

@SW: No one knew how to swim, bathing and wading was about all people could do in the water. And the girls preferred to do it in private.

From the bathing-machine came a din
As of jollification within;
It was heard far and wide
And the incoming tide
Had a definite flavor of gin.

-Edward Gorey

Once the machine had been pushed into the water, a woman could enter the water through doors on the seaward side, the body of the machine and the open doors forming a screen shielding her from the view of those on the beach.