Bathing machine

A Bathing cart or a bathing machine was a wooden locker room on two or four wheels that was pulled into the water. She offered in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially women the opportunity to bathe morally correct and unseen in the open sea. At that time it was considered improper and offensive, when a lady bathed in sight of men, even though the then usual swimwear veiled much more than today.

History

The bathing cart was invented, according to the historical sources about the year 1750 by the Englishman Benjamin Beale in Kent (England). There are in the Scarborough Public Library, however, already an illustration from 1736, which comes from John Setterington and such a vehicle shows. From England, the bathing machines spread out in the other European seaside resorts. In Germany, they appeared first in 1800 on Norderney and in Travemünde. After 1850, emerged on the German coasts, more and more bathhouses and bathing stalls - initially separated by gender - so that the carts were rarely used. In Britain, the legal segregation ended in the bath in 1901.

Use

The bathing barrow stood first at the beach and was entered by the users in street clothes, with a cart was always intended only for women or only for men. Inside the windowless cabin bathers then moved to protected from prying eyes. There were banks, which offered four to six people. The cart was then pulled into deeper water by a coachman with a team of horses. In some English seaside towns, however, were also built wooden rails into the water, there was even constructions, used the steam engines and wire rope hoists.

From the back door, facing away from the beach, we went via a small staircase into the sea, with a tarp over it was still looking forward too. A rope attached to the cart served the non-swimmers as a tether. At this time, especially most women of high society could not swim, it has only been bathed. During the bath, the truck served as a visual barrier. Then we went on the same way back to the beach.

In an article in the Mecklenburg Tageblatt of 25 August 1929, a witness recalled: " The bathing machines are spacious and comfortably furnished, pulled by a horse in the proper water depth, and if abgebadet ( which is signaled by the raising of the bath screen ) brought out on just the way again. Such a bath from the bathing machine costs for a single person 5 pence, two for a total of 6 pence. Built On the beach huts are to accommodate bathers to them comes the turn to swim. "