Swimming and swimming pools

I recently learnt about an exciting outdoor swimming pool I can try out in London. Not only is the London Fields Lido heated, but, at 50 metres, it is Olympic sized! With a bit of investigation, I learnt that the 1930s lido was closed for over 20 years before reopening in 2006, thanks to pressure from the community. Another impressive London pool is the 100 year old Kentish Town Baths which I joined a petition to save back in 2005, and is now thankfully undergoing renovation, not destruction. The London Pools Campaign lists 25 pools which are either closed or at risk of closure in London, and of course this is an issue which extends far beyond the capital. Swimming is a form of exercise that is excellent for burning calories, strengthening muscles and, being low impact, is ideal for people such as pregnant women and those with injuries. The government is clamouring to tackle obesity and get more people more active more often, so why are so many pools at risk of closure?

My local pub, The Swimmer at the Grafton Arms, is something of a shrine to the aesthetics of swimming, with a fine collection of images of old swimming pools (such as a floating pool on the River Thames!), a diagram of about 15 strokes which predate the invention of the front crawl, and photos of bathing suit-clad men, and women in fancy swimming hats. I wonder if swimming has made it into academic literature, as a topic which crosses the disciplines of social history, the sociology of leisure and policy studies?

I searched for ’swimming’ in IBSS and got a surprising 120 hits. I quickly realised that the search was picking up on the metaphorical use of the word ’swimming’ in the title field, generating results like ‘Swimming with sharks: technology ventures, defense mechanisms, and corporate relationships’. Amending my search to ’swimming pools’ got me 17 bona fide results, and searching for ’swimming’ but limiting this to the Subject field gave me 23 records which had been tagged with the keyword ’swimming’ by IBSS’s team of indexer/editors. This seems to be a good number of results, showing that swimming has at least a minor presence in the academic world.

I found lots of really interesting articles on the development of swimming by Christopher Love, who is clearly the main academic working on this topic. Swimming also seems to be a pet topic of The International Journal of the History of Sport.  In ‘An overview of the development of swimming in England, c.1750-1918′ Love (2007) asserts that the activity can be dated back to the mid-18th century when public school boys splashed around in “swimming holes”. By the late 19th century, swimming had become a more common recreational pursuit. In ‘Local aquatic empires: the municipal provision of swimming pools in England, 1828-1918′ , I learnt that the first municipal swimming pool was the St George’s Baths, Liverpool, built in 1828. This was followed by many pools nationally, and swimming came to be seen as something that local authorities should encourage because of its benefits to health and hygiene. In fact, an image at my local pub corroborates the link between cleanliness and swimming: the Hornsey Road Baths was also a laundry!

My search on IBSS shows me that swimming has sparked academic interest on both sides of the Atlantic. From grimy, utilitarian municipal pools to glamorous photographs of swimmers in days gone by, the idea of swimming seems to provoke a reaction in many. Three books about swimming in the Americas catch my eye. Kossuth (2005) looks at the development of municipal pools in Canada in the Victorian age. Van Leuven’s (1999) The springboard in the pond: an intimate history of the swimming pool discusses American swimming pools from the perspective of modernism, and also links swimming to an American ‘obsession’ with recreation and health. Wiltse’s (2007) Contested waters: a social history of swimming pools in America takes a class, race and body angle. The race perspective is shown in the book’s cover which is adapted from an advert for swimming classes in New York from the 1940s.

In ‘The future of swimming’, a chapter in Statistical Thinking in Sports (2007), Ray Stefani discusses swimming from a competitive athletics perspective. It seems likely that the 2012 Olympics will have some impact in boosting the protection of swimming in London. The new Aquatics Centre will have two 50 metre and one 25 metre pools. A look at the architecture of the Kentish Town Baths shows how grand swimming pools once were: . I hope that new pools are treated the same level of respect in future, and that planners start to see the beauty and historical value of old pools.

‘The Troubles’: history or current affairs?

With the recent re-ignition of political violence in Northern Ireland – IRA dissident groups shooting dead two army officers and a police constable – a period that most had hoped was consigned to history is suddenly making headlines again. Coming after a decade of peace, many commentators have drawn attention to the generation of young people for whom ‘the Troubles’ are simply something they learn about in school. The thousands of people who took to the streets to condemn the violence suggest that they are keen to confine this period to history lessons.

For those interested in re-visiting the academic literature on the subject to shed light on the current situation, IBSS offers a wealth of material. A search on ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Political violence’ brings up 347 results, and a subject search on the IRA 241 hits. Widening it to ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Conflict’ brings up 1188. Some articles take a long view of the troubles, for example ‘Irish republican politics and violence before the peace process, 1968-1994’, Marc Mulholland (2007); whereas many hone in on specific issues: for example ‘Meaning in the Maze: the heritage of Long Kesh’, B. Graham and S. McDowell (2007) looks at “the role of the former Long Kesh/Maze prison as one of the key heritage sites of the Northern Ireland conflict.”; or ‘Territoriality, alienation, and loyalist decommissioning: the case of the Shankill in Protestant West Belfast’, Neil Southern (2008) which looks at the post-conflict situation of one of the flashpoint areas of the conflict. Popular areas of research include the meaning of the famous mural art that emerged to express the sentiments of those involved in the conflict, for example: ‘Politics, painting and popular culture – the political wall murals of Northern Ireland’, Bill Rolston (1987), and ‘Local symbols, global networks: rereading the murals of Belfast’, Debbie Lisle (2006). Sectarianism and sport is another popular field.

For those wishing to go back further, there are two books that look useful: ‘Acts of Union: the causes, contexts, and consequences of the Act of Union’, D. Keogh and K. Whelan (2001); and ‘The Irish Act of Union, 1800: bicentennial essays’, Brown, Geoghegan and Kelly (2003).

The peace process itself has also generated a substantial literature of its own. A search on ‘Northern Ireland’ and ‘Peace process’ recalls 336 results, which look at the process from a variety of angles. ‘Beyond the wire: former prisoners and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland’ P. Shirlow and K. McEvoy (2008) looks at the key role many former combatants have played in leading communities through the peace process. Over 60 records look at the role of the political parties, among them ‘Polarisation or new moderation? Party politics since the GFA’ – a chapter in the book ‘A farewell to arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement’ (2006); and more than 70 address the role of civil society, among them ‘Global change, civil society and the Northern Ireland peace process: implementing the political settlement’ (2008) which includes chapters on the role of women in the peace process, as well as comparative analyses of other post-conflict societies, including Lebanon and South Africa.

There are relatively few articles assessing the likelihood of a return to violence, but one that does is ‘”They haven’t gone away, you know”. Irish republican “dissidents” and “armed struggle”, J. Tonge (2004) which notes that ‘The odds against militarist Republican “dissidents” appear overwhelming, as they lack weapons, members and support. Sinn Féin has carried most of the Nationalist constituency on its transition towards constitutionalism and the Irish Republic has abandoned its claim to Northern Ireland. Nonetheless, continued political uncertainty over the province’s political future has contributed to the maintenance of a long-standing militaristic tradition within Irish republicanism.’

Milk

Having really enjoyed Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and being a big fan of San Francisco, I’m keen to see what IBSS can tell me about the history of the gay rights movement in California.

The film Milk stars Sean Penn as America’s first openly homosexual politician in public office, Harvey Milk. For the last eight years of his life Milk was a gay activist in San Francisco, and was assassinated one year after being elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk is based on true events and shows many issues faced by the gay community in the ‘70s, rather than focussing exclusively on Harvey Milk’s rise to political prominence. I thought it would be interesting to see how I could supplement what I’d learnt from the film with academic research in the social sciences.

I decide to focus more on the historical events covered in the film than on Harvey Milk himself, so I search for ‘homosexuality’, ‘history’ and ‘San Francisco’. This is really successful, uncovering papers on several issues which the activists in Milk focussed their efforts on. The most shocking of these, and an issue which brought Harvey Milk into direct conflict with his eventual assassin Dan White, is Proposition 6, or the Briggs Initiative, which attempted to ban homosexuals and even supporters of gay rights from teaching in California’s public schools. In ‘Butterflies, whistles, and fists: gay safe street patrols and the ‘new gay ghetto’, 1976-1981’ C. Hanhardt (2008) discusses the Butterfly Brigade in Castro, San Francisco’s gay district, and their role in the protest against the Briggs Initiative. Their role in the Coors beer boycott, another event covered in the film, is also explored. I learn that the Butterfly Brigade was established to respond to the police’s ineffectiveness in dealing with violent homophobia. Operating from a bakery delivery truck in Castro, members of the brigade recorded homophobic acts and were police informants.

An insight into the police’s relationship with the gay rights movement is provided by C. Agee’s ‘Gayola: police professionalization and the politics of San Francisco’s gay bars, 1950-1968’ (2006). This is very interesting as Milk has many scenes in gay bars. Agee’s paper is a case study of John Mindermann’s work as a police officer in San Francisco in the 1960s. Mindermann gives a first hand account of police crackdowns on gay bars, and the relationship between the San Francisco Police Department and homosexuals. Agee explores the idea that police crackdowns were key to making the gay rights movement better organized and more effective. This theme is developed in ‘Wide-open town: a history of queer San Francisco to 1965’, N.A. Boyd (2005). Boyd suggests that communities in gay bars had a strongly politicised identity which developed in response to contemporary policing. The book looks fascinating in its variety of sources: it uses police and court records, oral histories, tourist literature, and manuscript collections from local and state archives. I think the book would be complemented nicely by S. Stryker and J. van Buskirk’s (1997) ‘Gay by the bay: a history of queer culture in the San Francisco Bay Area’, which has over 200 photos of the gay rights movement.

Searching for ‘Social movements’ and ‘San Francisco’, I discovered E. Armstrong’s 2005 paper ‘From struggle to settlement: the crystallization of a field of lesbian/gay organizations in San Francisco, 1969-1973’, which discusses how the social movement changed over time. Armstrong argues that “In 1968 gay liberation displayed a contradictory mix of civil rights, identity, and revolutionary political ideologies. By 1972 the movement had stabilized around building gay identity and pursuing civil rights.” She suggests that the collapse of the New Left movement in 1970 allowed activists to unite around central themes, and made their aims less fragmented. In ‘Movements and memory: the making of the Stonewall myth’ (2006), E. Armstrong and S. Crage compare the effect of the Stonewall riot and 4 other gay activists riots in the 1960s (including ones in Los Angeles and San Francisco) on collective memory in the gay rights movement.

I’m impressed by the number of records in IBSS which are specific to the history of gay activism in San Francisco. Much of the research taps into first hand accounts of the events covered in Milk. I end with a straight search for Harvey Milk, and one particular hit corroborates the film’s description of Harvey Milk as “Icon. Inspiration. Hero.”: a Harvey Milk Institute has been established in San Francisco for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies.

Jaruzelski – the lesser evil?

General Wojciech Jaruzelski goes on trial today over his imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981 – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7611690.stm. He imposed martial law to defeat the Solidarity workers’ opposition movement in Poland, which had become a powerful threat to the communist regime. Jaruzelski’s defence will be that he acted to prevent a Soviet crackdown which would otherwise have been inevitable to quash the Solidarity movement. Many Poles apparently believe him, and there has been no great clamour in the country to bring him before the court.

To find out a bit more about the circumstances surrounding these events, I ran some searches in IBSS using a range of terms, including ‘Jaruzelski’, ‘martial law and Poland’, and ‘Solidarity’. There are several works by the General himself, including his own justification of events Stan wojenny, dlaczego…? [The rule of martial law, why...?] published in 1992. I was especially interested to find reflections based on conversations between Jaruzelski and the leading Polish dissident Adam Michnik – Mein Leben für Polen. Erinnerungen. Mit einem Gespräch zwischen Wojciech Jaruzelski und Adam Michnik (Munich, 1993). There is also a comprehensive two volume contemporary account “Poland under Jaruzelski” (1982) from the now defunct periodical Survey (ISSN 0039-6192) which was a leading West European publication on Eastern bloc affairs. All of these would offer distinctive perspectives from the time and would make interesting reading.

However the crux of the matter is – will Jaruzelski’s defence stand up? How plausible is his claim to have acted to prevent a Soviet invasion which would, surely, have been a worse fate for Poland? The book Politics of the Lesser Evil: Leadership, Democracy and Jaruzelski’s Poland (A.Pelinka, 1999) is generally supportive of this view. However others seriously question whether the Soviet Union in this period saw intervention as an option. In ‘Moscow, Prague and Warsaw: Overcoming the Brezhnev Doctrine’, (W. Loth, 2001) the author contrasts the very different international circumstances of 1968 (when Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia) and 1981, suggesting that ‘The Soviet Union was no longer willing to intervene as it had been in 1968, but it was Jaruzelski who feared a possible collapse of “Socialism” and who decided to impose martial law in Poland’. An article on ‘The Soviet non-invasion of Poland in 1980-1981 and the end of the Cold War’ (V. Mastny, 1999) examined in detail the then newly available archival evidence from the Warsaw Pact crisis talks over the period. The picture is certainly very complex: military intervention, it seems, was planned, but these plans were halted in December 1980. By December 1981, when martial law was introduced, invasion was no longer a realistic threat. On this evidence it might seem that Jaruzelski imposed martial law not to avert an imminent Soviet invasion, but rather when he had given up hope of assistance from his Warsaw Pact allies, and realised he had to deal with Solidarity himself. The current trial, of course, will have to assess not only the actual likelihood of invasion, but also Jaruzelski’s own understanding of the situation at the time; in the midst of a political crisis, and without the benefit of hindsight, might he have genuinely and legitimately feared an external solution?

Dandies and fashion in the 18th century

Inspired by Ian Kelly’s biography Beau Brummell: the Ultimate Dandy, I was interested to see what material IBSS held on the history of men’s fashion, and perhaps the cultural context of 18th century Britain. I knew little of George ‘Beau’ Brummell until I picked up a copy of Kelly’s work in Fopp, attracted by the dandy tagline. Contrary to popular understanding of the word dandy as a foppish and ostentatious dresser, dandy fashion as conceived by Brummell, the leader of 18th century British dandyism, was a simple style of dress which was the precursor to the modern suit. Beau Brummell eschewed wigs, ruffs, breeches and the like, and trumpeted simplicity of dress, clean linen (it was still uncommon to wash regularly at the time), simple colours (white, buff and navy) and straight trouser legs.

I began by searching for ‘fashion’ and ‘18th century’ in IBSS and came up with 21 results, which were easy to sift through. My eye was caught by ‘Colour in European garments from the middle ages to the end of the 18th century’, Turnau, I. (2003) and ‘The appearance of Enlightenment: refashioning the elites’, McNeil, P. (2007), both works which ought to provide a good background to the study of the changing fashions of the time.

I wondered if ’style’ and ‘18th century’ would generate wildly different hits. I got 27 (generally new) hits, of which top of the list was the gem ‘Gentlemanly masculinities as represented by the late Georgian gentleman’s magazine’, Stafford, W. (2008). The article is a 20 page review of the primary source Gentleman’s Magazine, published between 1785 and 1815, just the era we’re talking about! The abstract informs me that almost half of the magazine comprises letters from readers, ‘making it an excellent source for representations of elite masculinities’. One sentence in the abstract particularly caught my eye: ‘The predominantly reflected masculinity of this source is polite, responsible and educated; but evidence of disapproval of other masculinities – of irresponsible youth, and of the ‘rough’ style of the libertine or sportsman – indicates that there was no single ‘hegemonic’ elite masculinity’. This is interesting in terms of contemporary attitudes towards Brummell and his followers, the Dandiacal Body. Brummell was Eton educated, but his more noticeable ‘masculinity’ was his youthful libertine rumbustiousness. It seems that this source could well provide telling evidence on public opinion about the dandies and changing fashion.

I was curious to see how specific I could get with my search, so tried ‘Fashion’, ‘United Kingdom’ and ‘18th century’. This gave me 3 hits, one of which was the intriguingly titled ‘A foot in the past: consumers, producers, and footwear in the long eighteenth century’, Riello, G. (2007) which would offer a detailed insight into the study of shoes, an issue which Kelly has not yet touched upon in his biography of Brummell.  I tried an even more specific search: ‘dandy’ and ‘United Kingdom’. I got 3 results, including ‘I love a man in a uniform: The dandy esprit de Corps’, Hoare, P. (2005). This looks like a useful article since, according to Kelly, Brummell’s taste for simple dress was inspired by his admiration for the uniforms of the 10th Light Dragoons, of which he was a member.

IBSS has certainly thrown up some material which would make useful additional reading to anyone who wants to know more having read Ian Kelly’s Beau Brummell: the Ultimate Dandy.