50 Vintage Found Photos of Beach Life in the Early 20th Century

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In the early 1900s, people began to accept women and men could swim together or at least swim at the same time and on the same beach. Bathing rolling machines became less popular and soon began to disappear. Clothing still covered most of the body, for men and women, but attitudes in England and the United States began to relax, with continental Europe already having been relaxed about swimming decades earlier.

The Olympics of 1912 were influential in public swimming, as that was the first time women were allowed to compete in a swimming competition. This helped to make the public seeing swimming by women more acceptable, including at the beach. Swimming was now seen as part of an exercise for a healthy life and both sexes were now taught how to swim in formal lessons and classes.

The 1920s had begun to loosen swimwear rules for women as well, where it became more acceptable for women to expose themselves somewhat more than they could publicly in the 1800s. However, arrests were still common through the 1920s and early 1930s for indecency even when women and men wore long, by modern standards, single-piece swimsuits.

People in the 1930s, particularly as the Depression made other activities more expensive, began to see the beach as a pleasurable and affordable place to visit, with movements against any more socially conservative attempts to prohibit the mixing of sexes in using the beach.

These vintage photos were found by Gail Durbin that show what beach life looked like from between the 1900s and 1920s.