Private spaces in public places: Comfort stations, fitting rooms, public baths, and locker rooms in America, 1880–1930 By Laura WalikainenRouleau, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2023. pp. 136. ISBN: 978‐1‐4214‐4999‐9

Résumé fourni par la source

It is a routine part of modern life for one to try on clothes in a department store fitting room, relieve oneself in a public restroom, or take a shower in a school locker room; however, that has not always been the case. As Laura Walikainen Rouleau notes in Private Spaces in Public Places: Comfort Stations, Fitting Rooms, Public Baths, and Locker Rooms in America, 1880–1930, prior to the era of American industrialization, immigration, urbanization, and consumerism, people clothed, relieved, and cleansed their bodies in the privacy of their own homes. As the culture evolved, middle-class designers, reformers, and officials developed the public spaces that became necessary for people to perform private bodily functions. Change did not come easily, and in her book, Rouleau explores these contested spaces and the ways that they reflect anxieties related to protecting one's body and social exclusions based on gender, class, race, and age, practiced by those who controlled them. Rouleau, who studies and teaches courses on the history of privacy, poses the following questions: “What is privacy? How is privacy defined and experienced? Who gets to define it, and why? And how does this definition impact people's lives?” (2). She presents four case studies that capture America at a time of great flux and attempts to answer these questions. The first case study centers on fitting rooms, such as one in the Strawbridge and Clothier department store in Philadelphia. Although department stores first appeared in America in the late 1870s and 1880s, it was not until the 1890s that they carried ready-made clothing for women. Prior to this time, men, women, and children had their clothing sewn at home by family members or friends while the upper class hired tailors or dressmakers to produce custom-made attire. These dressmakers either visited the patrons at their homes or operated small, female-only spaces in their own homes or shops, making public fitting rooms unnecessary. When department stores like Strawbridge and Clothier began selling not just dry goods but ready-to-wear garments, this changed. As Rouleau writes, “Retailer executives and store designers soon realized that they needed to create a space that offered middle-class women bodily privacy, where they could try on new ready-made clothing within the department store” (15–16). Store personnel wanted to offer a friendly, intimate space, not unlike a dressmaker's home, where women felt protected and comfortable. Thus, they placed gender-exclusive fitting rooms with mirrors in discreet locations along walls on upper floors, ensuring their customers' privacy. Rouleau asserts the prevailing notion that “undressed bodies needed to be hidden from public view. And, most importantly, male and female bodies needed to be physically and visually separated” (30). This was also the case with public baths, best exemplified by those in the public library in Calumet, Michigan, that copper mining executives financed at the turn of the century for their laborers and their families. Progressives were behind the idea as they tried to impose their own standards of personal hygiene on immigrant families, who typically bathed once a week. Further, as Rouleau argues, these reformers “attempted to surveil and control the working-class bath experience through the space of the public bath” (37–38). Bath attendants controlled bathers' privacy through time restrictions and spatial restraints, often determined by their gender, age, and class. For example, males and females bathed at different times, and while men usually bathed naked, women were required to wear bathing suits. Thus, as Rouleau concludes, “For middle-class reformers, the design, creation, and operation of public baths offered a means of instilling their values of hygiene and gender segregation in the working-class immigrant population” (51). Rouleau's last two case studies, on public comfort stations in New York City and Brookline, Massachusetts and on public-school locker rooms, such as the one at Painesdale High School in northern Michigan, explore similar themes. Segregated by gender, race, and class, these spaces offered varying amenities and levels of privacy. Although these facilities provided much-needed public space for people to relieve or cleanse themselves, they also imposed restrictions based on middle-class values, morality, and attitudes. For example, those younger and in lower classes were more monitored, and females were taught to conceal their bodies from one another, unlike males. In short, middle-class reformers and designers defined privacy and established spatial expectations and exclusions at a pivotal, transitional time in America's history. Although Private Spaces in Public Places looks at American life at the turn of the century, it sheds light on current assumptions. Rouleau tells readers they have the opportunity to rethink these assumptions, perhaps redefining privacy and redesigning spaces in a society that questions a binary definition of gender. Rouleau's book, which includes several black-and-white photos and detailed floor plans of the public spaces she discusses, is superbly researched and clearly written. Its novel topic will be of interest not only to historians and architects but also to anyone who studies gender, class, race, and age issues in American culture.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.