This Smithsonian study traces the surprisingly contested history of what American women wore into the water, from the heavy flannel bathing gowns of the early nineteenth century to the streamlined swimsuits of the modern era. Claudia Brush Kidwell follows the slow retreat of fabric as social attitudes, athletics, and ideas about the female body all shifted.
More than a curiosity, the bathing costume becomes a lens on changing notions of modesty, health, and freedom of movement. Kidwell draws on patents, advertisements, and museum collections to document how swimwear evolved alongside women’s growing access to sport and the seashore. Concise and well illustrated in its original form, it is a useful primer in dress history, available here as a free EPUB download.