'A What Ho!' 1920s Article on Racy Swimwear Is a Must-Read

By Madeleine Davies | September 17, 2014 | 11:00pm

L.A. Times Past, a Tumblr that archives L.A. Times articles dating back to the 1880s, has shared a wildly entertaining article from July of 1920, a tumultuous time for the risqué female bather who — thanks to the “Puritan pool edict” — were suddenly expected to cover up the scandalous bit of upper knee with a swim skirt:

Oh, you film bathing beauties! Likewise, a what ho! or two for the Venice mermaids, also what to tell! This is to warn you that if you would a-bathing go at any of the municipal swimming pools you must leave your gay and abbreviated bathing suits at home, for the Playground Commission, with the Council’s connivance, has issued a Puritan pool edict.

In other words, if you, this is only for feminine ears, would swim anywhere within the purlieus of Los Angeles you must hide your charms with a skirt that isn’t diaphanous.

…

“Oh, yes,” said Supt. Raitt of the Department of Playgrounds, yesterday, “we are turning back young women who would bathe in the city pools in suits that — ah, ahem — we, you know — suits that would be all right perhaps at Venice or Atlantic City but — well, we cannot permit them.”

Venice and Atlantic City: Constant safe havens for thigh-baring floozies.