AA-2026-E65862
On the image
A group of swimmers stretches across open water, each gripping a rope that trails behind an unseen boat, a method of water safety that assumed the best way to manage a crowd in deep water was to string them together like laundry and tow them across the bay. The rope is the visible thread holding the formation, and everyone is moving at the pace of whatever engine pulls the line, which is to say slowly and without complaint. This was the era before liability lawyers and swimming instructors with credentials figured out that a rope connecting multiple people in moving water created novel ways for something to go wrong. The mountains or high shoreline in the background suggest a sheltered waterway—a lake, sound, or protected bay—the kind of place where a community swimming event could be organised with the assurance that mothers would stand on shore nodding approval at the visible order of it all. Nobody in the water appears to be drowning or even reluctant, which was the whole theory behind the rope.
Visually related — by likeness
Swimmers in Towed Rope Line, Lake or Sound, 1950s. 1945–1965. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-E65862. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/swimmers-in-towed-rope-line-lake-or-sound-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026E65862,
title = {Swimmers in Towed Rope Line, Lake or Sound, 1950s},
year = {1945–1965},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-E65862},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/swimmers-in-towed-rope-line-lake-or-sound-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Swimmers in Towed Rope Line, Lake or Sound, 1950s PY - 1945–1965 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-E65862 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/swimmers-in-towed-rope-line-lake-or-sound-1950s ER -
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