Down by the Seashore
by Bob Brooke

Spending time at the beach has become a cultural ritual. But it wasn’t always like that. From ancient times through the 18th century, the seashore was the location of natural disasters and shipwrecks. Other hazards, such as bandits, smugglers, and pirates also arrived on the beaches.

The Romans built lavish villas on beautiful beaches well over 2,000 years ago. Howeveer, swimming at the beach wasn’t common due to fears of sea monsters and drowning. But people still enjoyed the sea breezes and beautiful vistas at places along the beach, as well as outdoor dining, drinking, and decadent parties. Popular destinations included the beaches along the Amalfi Coast. Both Pompeii and its wealthy neighboring town Herculaneum were two of the more popular Roman seaside resorts.

Seaside resorts reserved for the wealthy began to appear on the coast Great Britain in Scarborough and Yorkshire in the early 18th century. Located near hot springs which ran down seashore cliffs, people thought them to be medicinal. Around the 1750s, wealthy Europeans began praising the curative qualities of fresh air, exercise, and bathing in the sea. As the notion of the “restorative sea” developed, doctors began prescribing a plunge into the chilly waters to invigorate the body and enliven the spirit.

By the 1750s, the town of Brighton on the southern coast of England had become a seaside resort. It was also originally the site of an ancient Roman Bath resort. Brighton became extremely fashionable and a favorite destination among the upper classes when George III constructed a Royal Pavilion there for a vacation destination beginning in 1787, and , which George IV completed in the early 19th century. The royals used it as a royal seaside residency through most of Queen Victoria's reign.

Other coastal communities followed, catering to a growing clientele of sea bathers, especially women, seeking treatment for a number of maladies, such as melancholy, rickets, leprosy, gout, impotence, tuberculosis, menstrual problems, and “hysteria.” The seashore was also a place for the wealthy to get away from crowded cities and diseases such as malaria and typhoid fever.

The middle classes discovered the beach in England starting in the 1840s when railways made getting there affordable. Middle-class families liked to escape the grungy smoke-filled cities and go there for fresh air. Fast-growing beach towns popped up almost overnight, creating a financial boom. By the end of the 19th century, there were over 100 large beach resort towns along the English coastline. Developers constructed promenades or "Pleasure Piers" at each location vying for people's attention. The seashore officially went from a place to harvest fish to a destination for fun and amusements.

As the Industrial Revolution got well underway, middle-class families took to the shore in ever-increasing numbers. In sailors’ jargon, “on the beach” once connoted poverty and helplessness; being stranded or left behind. Now it conveyed health and pleasure. The term “vacation,” once used to describe an involuntary absence from work, became a welcome interlude.

Though the seaside resort, as it’s known today, was a British invention, throughout the 19th century, the phenomenon made its way across Europe to Normandy, southwestern France, Italy, parts of Scandinavia, and northern Germany, bringing with it the cult of health and sociability. The seashore became a site of amusement and recreation—a place to get away.

It was Romantic writers and painters at the turn of the 19th century who added emotion and wonder to the act of strolling along the beach or watching the tide turn. The coastal landscape became a place of transformation, where a person could be immersed in nature.

But participating in seashore pleasures simply wasn’t done the way it is today. To cope with the modesty of the Victorian Era, "Bathing Machines" came into being. Covered in wood or canvas, these sexually segregated mobile dressing room carts had curtains on one end. They allowed bathers to hang their clothes high while wading into the salty waters. These salty plunges inside the Bathing Machines usually lasted about five or ten minutes. Women wore wool suits that covered almost all of their bodies, but men often went in naked. "Proper" people bathed inside these dressing rooms since society considered drenching themselves in salted water to be therapeutic. Doctors actually prescribed treatments, including how long patients should be in the salty water, how often, and under what conditions. This practice lasted for over a century.

Having fun at the beach didn’t become a popular summertime pastime in the United States until the late 19th century. In fact, the first public beach, called Revere Beach, didn’t open until 1896 about five miles north of Boston. A rail line transported beachgoers from Boston out to the seaside.

Following the success of Revere Beach, other beach towns sprang up along the Eastern seaboard, from Coney Island in New York to Cape May in New Jersey. On June 26, 1766, the Pennsylvania Gazette carried an advertisement placed by Robert Parsons, a Cape May farmer, informing Gazette readers that Cape May was the ideal place for enjoying the healthful benefits of bathing in local waters. He further noted that due to his shrinking family and large house, he had ample room to take in "paying guests."

It was after the War of 1812 that Cape May began its development as a popular resort. Then the journey was long and difficult—usually two or three days--with visitors arriving by horseback, stagecoach or sailing vessel. By 1850 a flourishing resort had emerged and from then to the turn-of-the-20th-century, Cape May became a glittering social center, much like Newport, Rhode Island, and Saratoga Springs, New York, where the nouveau riche could pursue their extravagant displays of opulence.

By the end of the 19th century, other seaside resorts began popping up all along the Eastern seaboard all the way to Florida.

It wasn't until the early 20th century that people began wearing bathing suits as opposed to heavy all-covering woolen frocks worn by women beforehand. By the late 1920s, women began to wear bathing suits that showed arms and legs.

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