The entrance to Bain Genereux on Amherst, now an eco-musuem dedicated to the working class.
Well, as I write dialogue to the play, Milk and Water, about Montreal in 1927, questions keep coming up, so I have to research the answers, which inevitably leads to me finding more information than I need.
In 1926, a beautiful Art-Deco bathhouse was built on Amherst, the 15th or 16th public bathhouse in the City. (The term "art deco|" wasn't coined til the 60's I believe.)
Anyway, Mayor Mederic Martin inaugurated the place in 1927, so I have to mention it in the play, where I have my grandfather, Jules Crepeau (Director of City Services) discussing life, politics, business and ethics with my husband's grandfather, Thomas G Wells, the President of Laurentian Spring Water, a bottled water company.
Laurentian Water was founded in 1882 when a spring was found under Craig street containing uncommonly pure water. They created a bottled water company (as Montreal water was crappy then) and a private bathhouse and pool.
This bathhouse offered a wash and swim for 25 cents, with a towel, soap and trunks. If you wanted a Turkish bath, it cost 50 cents.
That bathhouse was a sporting place, where polo was played and swimming lessons given. A young grocery clerk died in the pool 1913, so it wasn't only for rich men. (Of course, you don't know the exact circumstances. He was young man.)
It closed in 1919.
I'm a bit confused. Public bathhouses were 'an issue' all over the big North American Cities from 1880 through to the Second World War.
In England and in Germany they'd had bathhouses to wash the industrial poor since the 1850's.
It became, as far as I cans see, a public health issue in the US around 1900. Only about a fourth of homes had bathtubs and there were hardly any in the slums.
American bathhouses were just that BATHHOUSES. Not pools. Some were free, in NY they charged 5 cents for a towel and soap.
I'm not sure what they charged in the Montreal public baths. Either free or five cents, I imagine. Likely much cheaper than Laurentian offered, consequently, maybe that's why they went out of the pool business. (I will have Mr. Wells suggest that...He will accuse the City of Stealing his idea. MY grandfather will say, they stole if from England and Germany, or the Greeks, even.)
But the Montreal "public baths" I think, were pools and washing facilities. For cleanliness and physical health.
Here's a quote from the NYT, a public bath house advocate, that expresses a sentiment that was widely believed in, as in CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS "Bodily cleanliness is the first essential. By comparison, religion, morals, education could be dispensed with and even crime tolerated for the present moment, if this reform could be obtained, because with it, crime would soon disappear, and religion, morals and education would reign supreme."
It is no wonder French Canadians and Catholic immigrant groups were suspicious of the 'hygienist" movement: it was a movement that equated Protestant values with cleanliness...and superiority. Eugenics was all tied into this too. Very scary, in a way.
