School Boards Followed Blindly For Over 65 Years Because They Were Told That They Could Not Use Common Sence or Logic But Must Do What The Health Department Said.  

Owosso Mi – Ask any male over 60 what scars their memories of public school, and most will say, “Having to swim nude with all the other boys” You may not know this, but it was a requirement across this country that boys were not allowed to wear swim trunks at school. And if you are going eww, did you know that many boys across the country did not wear trunks in meets even when females and children were present?    

This was the norm from the early 1900s up until the mid to late 1970s. There are deniers who claim such a thing could never have happened in the United States, yet it certainly did.   

Why? Scientists claimed that swimsuits harbored far more germs than freshly scrubbed skin.  And so, when questioned about their nudity requirement, YMCA officials gave three reasons: 
 
1.  Cleanliness for the swimmer. 
2.  Cleanliness of the pool. 
3.  Encouraging a proper attitude toward the body and life. 

In the U.S., the Young Men's Christian Association led the way in swimming.  The Brooklyn YMCA built the first indoor pool in America in 1885.  All men and boys were expected to swim nude from the beginning—just as they had for thousands of years.  The swimsuit had been invented just 16 years earlier, in 1869.  Women and girls had taken to the clumsy outfits—men only on the most crowded beaches, and boys rarely anywhere. 

Public Schools in the northern states started building indoor swimming pools for students to use for exercise in the winter months. The American Public Health Association in 1926 issued its first guidelines for maintaining sanitation in school pools.  They recommended that all boys swim nude but conceded that girls might wear simple costumes of undyed cotton.  Usually, these were ill-fitting baggy affairs owned and laundered by the school after each use.  Some schools left the suits optional for girls. Yes, some schools had girls swim naked but that was not the norm.  

By 1937, the Administration of Health and Physical Recreation training manual stated, "Nude bathing for boys is practiced universally; in a few schools girls may swim nude and this is the most sanitary method." 

 
In many high schools, the boys' swim team practiced nude but wore Speedos during competition.  Yet if both teams agreed, they might compete nude before a mixed-sex audience.  This happened routinely in some parts of the country, never in others.  There are even photographs of mixed swim teams—the boys nude, the girls in swimsuits—but they appear to be of college-age.  (Beware of doctored photos.  Most schools drew the line at picture-taking, and insisted on swimsuits one day a year for the yearbook picture; a few of those have since been photoshopped to reflect the everyday reality. 

On October 16, 1950, Life magazine ran a full-color picture of nude boys playing with beach balls in the new and bigger pool at New Trier High School in Winnetka IL.  They did not even bother to comment on the standard nudity. 
 
In 1947, the girls (age 9 to 13) in three Highland Park, Michigan elementary schools asked to swim nude like the boys had for years, so they could spend more time in the pool, and less in the locker room.  But after a few weeks of that, some mothers from Liberty School complained to the school board.  One mother testified, "We are all alarmed about this freedom the girls have been given.  There is no telling what it could lead to and we want it stopped at once."  The one woman on the board responded, "No moral issue is involved.  This type of discussion I think is not going to lead to anything constructive to discuss."  The men on the board silently bowed to the wishes of the mothers and decided that the 150 girls of Liberty School would go back to wearing suits, but the 200 girls at the other two schools could continue to swim nude. 

In September of 1970, advice columnist Abigail Van Buren wrote about boys in their upper teens swimming nude with clothed girls in a family pool:  "It's called the American way of life.  There is something quite natural about boys swimming naked at the local swimming hole, or as in your friends' case, at their own lakefront home.  Boys do not require the same degree of modesty as girls, and are, as you have observed, free to relax and enjoy the sun and the water as nature intended.  Many schools and YMCAs utilize this as a policy with boys in swim class and on swim teams.  Rather than attempt to reign in your boys, you should be encouraging them to adapt to this more natural way of life." 
 
Though a few late developers later complained about traumatic embarrassment, the truth was that most boys enjoyed swimming nude.  The Duluth, Minnesota school board made nudity for boys optional in 1973.  When allowed to vote, the boys in every Duluth junior high chose to continue swimming nude. 

So What Killed The Practice? No one said the science changed for the School Boards under the guise of the following science continued mandating boys swim nude until.... Title IX: equal sports access for girls in 1972. 

That changed everything, for boys and girls were told they now had to swim together. 

At Sarasota High School in Florida, the principal let the boys' and girls' coach each decide the dress code for their classes.  The male teacher said clothed for the boys; the female teacher said nude for the girls all through the early 1970s. 
 
While a few girls in other places argued for the right to swim nude like the boys did, the solution at most schools was to have mixed-gender classes with everybody clothed.  The YMCA did the same thing.  School boards caved in with the slogan, "Swimsuits rather than lawsuits."  By the late 1970s, bastions of male nude swimming were dropping off fast. 
 
Later developments added nails to the coffin.  A 1980s panic about teacher molestation didn't help.  Nor did a later tendency to put nude teens and adults on sexual predator lists.  Despite all this, many high school wrestlers continued to weigh in nude until 2010—a tradition that ended because of cell phone cameras.     

It has been stated by some that attended Owosso High School that it wasn’t until 1976 before males were allowed to start wearing swimming suits.  

Remember that today we know that this was following bad science. But the School Board Members in the past, as today, are told to blindly follow what they are told, or they will be removed from the Board.  

It isn’t just School Board Members that blindly follow what they are told to do but also many people in the public that don’t believe one should speak up and ask, “Why”?  

So many people believe that when someone says to follow the science that does not mean to blindly do as one says but instead it means, do your own due diligence, take responsibility for your own life, and do what is good for you.  

Remember when science said it was not healthy to take a bath or wash your hands? Thank God that was standard before 1900 and not in our time. Remember science once claimed that one race was smarter than another, we know that was bad science, then there were those who followed the science of giving your little children paregoric (opium) in the early 1900s to keep the kids from fussing and being Rambunctious.  

Now today we are told one thing by the CDC and something else by The WHO, and then something else by the political party in power. No one is supposed to ask questions or be allowed to believe anything different than what the Social Media Censors say you can believe. 

Bottom line is that to be a responsible adult one must not believe everything they are told but do their own research and follow common sense.  

We have always had bad science and unfortunately, the sheep in the population didn’t question but only followed the rest over the cliff.  

The material used in this article was first compiled by Paul LeValley and published in the publication Nude & Natural 37.1 (Fall 2017).  It was updated fall of 2021 

Click on link to read the original article in its entirety as well as to see the lists of schools across the country and the years they had nude swimming.  

Photo: Google – Male Swimmers in Chicago 

http://www.tnsprofessorsig.org/nude swimming in school.html?fbclid=IwAR0H8p3u-rkTSuDYJQSfM7r5lZ3nTZLqHyZ2W7dWw-6Rv4HOaqQU_ro6_sI