Contested Waters
A Social History of Swimming Pools in America
By Jeff Wiltse
(University of North Carolina Press, Paperback, 9780807871270, 276pp.)
Publication Date: May 2010
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover
Categories: United States - 20th Century, Social History, Swimming
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Description
From nineteenth-century public baths to today's private backyard havens, swimming pools have long been a provocative symbol of American life. In this social and cultural history of swimming pools in the United States, Jeff Wiltse relates how, over the years, pools have served as asylums for the urban poor, leisure resorts for the masses, and private clubs for middle-class suburbanites. As sites of race riots, shrinking swimsuits, and conspicuous leisure, swimming pools reflect many of the tensions and transformations that have given rise to modern America.











