Bathing on a Steamship - 1906
THOSE who go down to the sea in ships can, in these good modern days, go as far as they like, or rather, as far as their purse strings will reach, in the matter of bathing. The ship owners and makers have certainly done their part. Every first-class ocean liner nowadays has as many bathrooms as a first-class hotel, and the best and most up-to-the-minute of them provide their first-cabin passengers with all the comforts of home and more in this respect.
Electric Light Bath on the Steamship Amerika. GGA Image ID # 1f3d0552c1
The builders of the "Amerika," the grand floating palace put into commission last year by the Hamburg-American line, reached the acme of ablutionary luxury. The gaping thousands who have crowded its decks on visiting days and oh-ed and ah-ed at its café, gymnasium, nursery, lift, and all the wonders of its city block of length and skyscraper height have won, tied as much at the bathing facilities as anything else.
Nor is there anything that marks it more definitely as the answer to the demands of the present hour. Bathing has become a fad. Not to bathe from one to three times a day—and, it would seem, alas, not to tell of it on every possible occasion—is not to be in fashion.
Bathroom of Imperial Suite on the Steamship Amerika. GGA Image ID # 1f3d29bbb7
One would as soon think of taking passage on a ship that did not serve meals as on one that did not provide facilities for a bath. The passenger paying his $1,600 for the imperial suite on the "Amerika" could scarcely know, if only the boat would stand still, that he was not in his limb at the Waldorf, his club, or his own home.
Like everything on the ship, the room is compact, but the floor is tiled, and the walls are wainscoted with onyx slabs. The tub and stationary washstand have hot and cold water, and the nickel finishings sparkle and shine under the electric light.
The other private baths on board the "Amerika," while somewhat less costly in their furnishings, afford equal comfort and number 28. In all, the steamer has 60 baths. An innovation on this ship is an electric light bath, a privilege accorded without charge to all first-class passengers.
Swimming Tank on Pacific Liner. GGA Image ID # 1f3d2a7674
While the big Atlantic liners have spoken the last word about luxury in bathing facilities, the Pacific liners have added a recreation feature to their equipment.
Every big passenger steamer plying between the West Coast ports and the Orient carries a huge canvas stowed away somewhere in its hold, sewed in the shape of a tank. On fair days during the voyage, this tank is brought to the main deck and lashed to the deck rails and heavy cross beams. It is then pumped full of seawater, and the passengers are free to don bathing suits at any time and have a plunge.
As the tank holds about four or five feet of water and covers almost the entire space of the main deck forward, it makes swimming possible. The sport is freely indulged in, to the enjoyment not only of the swimmers themselves but also of the passengers who care to look on from the upper deck. When the voyage is too rough, or the weather is cold, the tank is emptied, folded, and stowed away.
The evolution of the shipboard bath is easily traced. In its tracing, one becomes aware of how comparatively recent the widespread popularity of the bathtub is. Nor is it reasonably necessary to go all the way down the line of steamships from these floating palaces with their swimming tanks, onyx-trimmed baths, and electric light cabinets to the little old-fashioned boats plying along the coast, which, like a country hotel, have but one bath for everybody. The whole story is told between the upper deck and the hold of one big steamer.
Saturday Night Is the Time for a General Clean Up. GGA Image ID # 1f3d4577e9
Those to whom the daily bath is as the daily bread pay for a private bathroom. Those others who must consider ways and means, and who, for the week or two or three of an ocean voyage, can content themselves with a sponge bath in their room or a bath in a standard bathtub, find this accommodation provided with a cheaper stateroom on a first-class liner, or with the first cabin of a second-class liner.
And by the time you get to the steerage, there is no bath at all, and the people herded there are lucky when they can lurch to a standard sink and get a chance to rinse off their faces and hands. While down farther, another deck or two, the same sink is provided for the men who come up all grimy and dripping with sweat from the oppressive heat of the engine rooms.
Perhaps, after all, a sink is all that would be used by these stokers and firemen, who barely have the strength to climb the ladder leading out of the fierce hot hole where they work, wash off the thickest of their sooty mask, being careful the while to avoid any breath of cool air, and then crawl into their bunks to rest till the hour of their shift comes round again.
The Saturday Night Clean Up on a Lumber Schooner. GGA Image ID # 1f3d52e958
Perhaps, too, disgusting as conditions in the steerage seem to a person of clean habits, the lack of decent bathing facilities is not a very great hardship to the average steerage passenger, who is of that class of European peasants that know no better use for the bathtub of his new tenement home than the storage of odds and ends of household rubbish.
Going on down the line of ocean craft, the very worst of the bathing facilities afforded on the big ocean steamers are better than the best on sailing vessels. Get any old-time sailor to spin yarns, and he will tell you of days when all the men had to depend upon, in the way of water, what they could catch when it rained.
And when the voyage ran on into months with never a sight of land and rains were scarce, many a man has had his allowance of water cut down to a quart a day for all purposes—his slop, his drink, and his bath. And it is a safe guess since sailors are men, and hungry men at that, that the more significant part of that quart of water, if not all of it, went to regale the inside rather than refresh the outside of him.
Only when a man was found to be "crumby" would they hustle him out to the fo'c'sle and scrub him down with a scrub brush and all the water they could spare.
It was always a great day on those long voyages when the clouds gathered above, opened up, and let the rain down.
If the latitude was low enough, every man jack aboard stripped down to his last stitch and took a shower bath right from the sky. Meanwhile, they plugged the scuppers and let the water collect on the deck, and a general wash-day was declared.
Trousers, blouses, socks, and all that a sailor wears were scattered about the deck, and as the water backed up and covered them, the men stamped them with their feet or got down on their knees with soap and brushes and scrubbed the clothes sailor-fashion. Then they put them on again wet or hung them on the rigging to dry, as the state of their wardrobe allowed.
All the while, the scuttlebutt and every tub and cask aboard were set out to catch what fell from the roof of the fo'c'sle and the officers' quarters, helping to eke out the water supply until the next rain fell.
Sailors Taking a Swim When the Ship Is in Port. GGA Image ID # 1f3dce3c12
It is similar now on board sailing vessels. The only difference is that, for the most part, the voyages do not cover so many clays or weeks, and enough water can be carried to last from port to port, with the rains to help out. Besides, the men who ship on sailing vessels are not men to whom a bath is the most vital thing in the world, and a cleaning up once a week is enough to satisfy most of them.
Now and then, some youngster who has run away from a home where he has heard that cleanliness and godliness are akin and has had, perchance, a little too much of both of them find that sea-going men go a bit too far the other way and vents his spells of homesickness by stealing a little extra water from the scuttlebutt—only it would be called "taking," not "stealing"—and sneaking off to an unfrequented side of the deck to rub out a shirt or a pair of socks a little more often than sailor law allows.
In port, Saturday night is the time for a general clean-up. On every other night in the week, a sailor's only thought is to get ashore when his work is done, and no sooner have the whistles of the port town ceased blowing for five o'clock than the procession of sailors is crossing the gangplank, scattering in all directions toward the various saloons that line every waterfront.
Sailor work is like clockwork, and no man stops to finish what he may be doing but quits with a crank half turned, a rope half hauled, or with a barrel, crate, load of timber, or whatever the cargo may be swinging in midair from the jib. On Saturday night, it is the same as any other, save that everybody goes to the forward deck just outside the fo'c'sle for the general clean-up instead of breaking at once for his favorite saloons.
Sneaking off to Rub Out a Shirt or a Pair of Socks. GGA Image ID # 1f3dce816a
Off come blouses and undershirts, and the men take turns hosing each other down while those who don't want to wait for the hose lather their heads and stick them down into buckets, tubs, or whatever sort of vessel is handy. Some get to work with scrubbing brushes and washboards and get some clean clothes ready for Sunday, Jack Tar's courting day.
How many attend this Saturday's seance on the forward deck depends significantly on the weather. When it is cold, attendance is much reduced, for there is a big hurry in the direction of barroom cheer, but when summer comes, there is much splashing out by the fo'c'sle.
And, when the schooner is docked in a bay where the water is clean and inviting, many men strip to underdrawers and shins and go overboard for a swim in the sea. This is also a sailor's favorite method of tubbing when his ship is becalmed out in mid-ocean, always provided the weather is warm. In winter, Jack Tar waits for the weather to improve.
Bertha H. Smith, "Bathing on Shipboard," in Modern Sanitation: Devoted to the Advancement of Sanitary Plumbing, Pittsburg: Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, Vol. III, No. 4, September 1906: pp. 5-10.
Review and Summary of "Bathing on a Steamship - 1906"
This 1906 article on shipboard bathing provides a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of hygiene and bathing facilities on ocean liners and sailing vessels, contrasting luxury accommodations with the harsh realities of crew and steerage passengers. It highlights the growing emphasis on cleanliness aboard ships, particularly among first-class passengers, while acknowledging the continued hardships faced by lower-class travelers and sailors.
For teachers, students, genealogists, historians, and maritime enthusiasts, this article offers a valuable study in social history, technological advancements in ship sanitation, and class disparities in ocean travel.
Relevance to Different Fields of Study
1. For Educators & Students: A Case Study in Social Class and Maritime Hygiene
📌 Key Themes: Technological Advancements, Social Class Divides, Hygiene in Ocean Travel
This article serves as an excellent resource for discussing historical advancements in sanitation, particularly in the context of:
- Industrialization and luxury travel, showcasing how advancements in shipbuilding catered to first-class passengers.
- Social inequality, where first-class passengers enjoyed private, onyx-trimmed bathrooms, while steerage passengers had no bathing facilities at all.
- The contrast between Atlantic and Pacific liners, with the former focusing on luxury baths and the latter providing recreational seawater swimming pools for passengers.
🔎 Classroom Discussion Ideas:
- How did bathing facilities on ocean liners reflect class divisions in society?
- Compare early 20th-century hygiene standards with modern cruise ships and their spa-like amenities.
- How did technological advancements in plumbing, water supply, and sanitation improve maritime travel?
2. For Genealogists: Understanding Immigrant Travel Conditions
📌 Key Themes: Sanitary Conditions in Steerage, Immigrant Experience, Passenger Ship Hygiene
For those researching ancestors who traveled in steerage, this article provides:
- A stark look at the limited hygiene facilities available to working-class immigrants.
- Context for shipboard life, explaining the struggles of maintaining personal cleanliness during long voyages.
- Details on sailor hygiene, revealing how crew members—particularly stokers and firemen—had minimal access to water for washing.
📖 Genealogy Tip:
- If your ancestors arrived in the U.S. or Canada via steerage, their ocean travel experience was vastly different from first-class passengers.
- Immigration records and ship manifests often mention passenger health and ship sanitation inspections—this article helps explain why hygiene was a concern for officials.
3. For Historians: Tracing the Evolution of Bathing and Sanitation at Sea
📌 Key Themes: Maritime Hygiene, Technological Innovations, Social History
This article provides valuable insights into the progression of maritime hygiene, including:
- The introduction of electric-light baths as a luxury for first-class passengers aboard the Hamburg-America liner Amerika.
- The rise of personal hygiene trends in the early 1900s, as daily bathing became fashionable.
- The historical neglect of lower-class passengers and crew, reflecting broader societal attitudes toward working-class hygiene.
📖 Historical Research Tip:
- Compare these bathing conditions to other contemporary public hygiene efforts, such as the rise of public bathhouses in urban areas.
- Look at maritime health regulations—when did ship sanitation laws start enforcing better hygiene standards for steerage and crew members?
Most Interesting and Unique Content in the Article
1. The Luxurious Bathing Facilities on First-Class Liners
🛁 Why It’s Interesting:
- Ships like the Amerika offered onyx-trimmed bathrooms, electric-light baths, and hot/cold running water, a level of luxury equivalent to high-end hotels.
- The article highlights how first-class bathing became a symbol of wealth and modernity.
📖 Why It’s Useful:
- Shows the rapid technological advancements in ocean liner design.
- Offers a glimpse into high society's expectations for comfort during ocean travel.
2. The Canvas Swimming Pools on Pacific Liners
🏊 Why It’s Interesting:
- Unlike Atlantic liners, Pacific steamships carried collapsible canvas pools, which could be set up on deck and filled with seawater.
- This innovation added a recreational aspect to long voyages, allowing passengers to swim at sea.
📖 Why It’s Useful:
- Demonstrates how ocean travel experiences varied by route and ship design.
- Highlights the growing trend of recreational travel, beyond just transportation.
3. The Lack of Bathing Facilities for Steerage Passengers and Crew
🚢 Why It’s Interesting:
- While first-class passengers had hotel-like bathrooms, steerage passengers often had no access to showers or baths.
- Sailors and engine-room crew relied on rainwater to wash, and sometimes went months without a proper bath.
📖 Why It’s Useful:
- Provides an unfiltered look at the hardships of ocean travel for lower-class passengers and crew.
- Highlights the stark contrast between luxury and necessity on ocean liners.
Final Thoughts: A Window into Maritime Hygiene and Social Divides
This 1906 article on shipboard bathing is more than just a look at hygiene—it is a study in social class, technological progress, and changing attitudes toward cleanliness.
✔ For educators, it serves as a primary source for discussing social class disparities in ocean travel.
✔ For genealogists, it provides insight into the hardships faced by steerage passengers and immigrant ancestors.
✔ For historians, it showcases how sanitation and hygiene evolved aboard steamships.
✔ For maritime enthusiasts, it offers a rare look at daily life and bathing customs at sea.
Ultimately, this article captures a unique moment in maritime history, when ocean liners transformed from utilitarian vessels to floating palaces of luxury—for those who could afford it.
