08/23/2026
Guidelines for Sea Bathing
(From a 1885 pamphlet called Summer Days in New Jersey)
“1. Before bathing in the surf, run briskly up and down the beach for 10 minutes. If you wear any lacing around the chest, throw it off and let your lungs have a hearty chance for all the air they can take. If any cheerful and muscular fellow is willing to race with you, have a foot-race right on the sand.
2. Now bounce through the surf with a hop, skip, and jump; hold your fingers to your ears and your thumbs to your nostrils, and put your head under the water. Now dance, leap, tumble, swim, kick, float, or make any other motions that seem good to you.
3. Don’t use soap in salt water! It will make you dismally sticky.
4. If your teeth are of the kind which did not grow in your mouth, beware lest a wave knock them out.
5. Don’t bathe immediately after a full meal…If you are taking an early morning bath, put a few crackers into your inner man, just as you leave the house to come down to the surf.
6. On coming out, run up and down the beach as briskly as before bathing.”
These “rules” seem to be geared toward males. I’ll have to look for a publication outlining guidelines for women and the beach.
Source: The Jersey Shore: a Social and Economic History of the Counties of Atlantic, Cape May, Monmouth, and Ocean by Harold Wilson.
