Participation in nudism and regular attendance at a nudist club required both time for leisure and disposable income. Nudists often reported high levels of education that resulted in desirable occupations. While the 1950 census found that Americans had, on average, 9.3 years of education, the average nudist reported 13.4 years of education.127 Nudists also earned higher incomes. In 1950, the average family earned $2,992.128 In comparison, 47 percent of the members at one nudist camp reported incomes between $3,000 and $4,999, and 48.5 percent earned incomes between $5,000 and $9,999.129 Another 3 percent took home less than $3,000, and 1.5 percent made more than $10,000.130 Reflecting a growing reliance on women’s wages to support the high standard of living enjoyed by many postwar families, 24 percent of the members at one nudist camp also reported that their wife contributed to household earnings.131 Further reflecting the white-collar character of nudism, the most common profession at the camp fell in the category of clerk (27.1 percent), while unskilled labor constituted the least prevalent occupation at 2.2 percent. Skilled workers and farmers (25.0 percent); proprietors, managers, and officials (20 percent); semiskilled workers (14.5 percent); and professional persons (10.4 percent) constituted the other occupations at the camp.132 On the basis of these higher-than-average education levels and incomes and more distinguished occupations, American nudism was defined by a demographic with the means to pursue leisure and travel.
The dramatic growth of nudist resorts in the postwar period made it easy for middle-class families to frequent the nudist club of their choosing. The 84 clubs that Sunshine and Health listed as active in 1936 had grown to 124 by 1954.133 Taking into account the high failure rate of early nudist clubs makes the 124 clubs listed in 1954 an even more dramatic figure. Only 10 percent of the clubs from 1936 appeared on that same list in 1954. Norval Packwood, then president of the ASA, explained that the organization had reduced its “turn-over” rate to 4 percent and improved its rate of increase to 25 percent after the Second World War.134 With many camps suffering dramatic membership losses due to gas rationing and the war effort in the 1940s, the dramatic postwar growth of American nudist clubs signaled a significant shift toward more accepting attitudes toward nudism and a willingness to participate in nudist activities.
An estimated ASA membership of twenty thousand practicing nudists around the country supported a dispersed network of clubs.135 The biggest increase in nudist resorts by region occurred in the West.136 This trend likely reflected the expansion of the national highway system, a more temperate year-round climate, the availability of land, and a mythology that idealized individuality and freedom. Including the mountain and Pacific states, the West accounted for 37.8 percent of American nudist resorts in 1954—up from 20.5 percent of the total number of clubs in 1936.137 The Northeast and North Central regions, however, both showed a significant decline in clubs. Reflecting the impact of hostile legislation that banned the lifestyle in Michigan and New York and the unfriendly reception nudism received from Chicago residents, the movement’s early strongholds in the Midwest and Northeast declined dramatically from a zenith of 48.7 percent of nudist resorts in 1936 to only 39.6 percent in 1954. The membership of the South’s nudist clubs during this same period stayed steady, with approximately 20 percent of the total number of nudist clubs, despite a warmer climate.138 While clubs were more plentiful in the West than in the Northeast, the Midwest, or the South, Americans from almost any part of the country would not have found it difficult to travel by car to a nearby nudist club.
In the early years of American nudism, managers selected campsites on the basis of their seclusion, availability, and price. After the war, these rustic and austere spaces were transformed into well-equipped scenic resorts ready to cater to prosperous middle-class families. Rather than stressing the need for isolation, numerous articles in Sunshine and Health advised prospective camp managers to identify grounds with large lakes, flowing streams, and bountiful vegetation if they wished to establish a successful club that would attract members and visitors.139 Sunshine Park in Mays Landing, New Jersey, stood out as the preeminent example of the new nudist resort. Located just fourteen miles outside Atlantic City, the national headquarters of the ASA contained a large lake and beautiful sprawling grounds spreading out over one hundred acres.140 In the postwar years, the construction of a new office building, dining hall, and kitchen and many other improvements to the already impressive grounds established Sunshine Park as “a nudist mecca.”141 Constructing an atmosphere that revolved around family, domesticity, and traditional gender ideals, nudists created a space for their camps within the postwar vacationing experience.
Sunshine Park’s redesigned entrance symbolized the beginning of a new era for American nudism. In the summer of 1946, the camp manager dismantled the “old natural-log entrance” and replaced it with a “new semi-elliptical concrete wall” that had two openings on either side for cars to freely enter and exit.142 The imposing new entrance functioned to deter unwanted onlookers just as the old log entrance had, but its permanent concrete structure also communicated a sense of stability and permanence that gave visitors confidence in the resort and the movement’s place in American society. In a photograph used to advertise the new improvements to Sunshine Park, the redesigned gate also exhibited the heterosexual character of the park. Featuring a middle-aged naked man and woman standing on opposite sides of the structure to welcome guests, the image displayed the gate’s size and signaled that the camp preferred established heterosexual couples over single men or women. Exhibiting stability and domesticity, nudists felt “proud of the austere dignity” that the new entrance bestowed on Sunshine Park.143
Additionally, the camp manager understood that the privacy and anonymity afforded by the automobile allowed more Americans to frequent the parks than ever before. To encourage this trend, he designed the entry at Sunshine Park to instill a “feeling of exhilaration” for motorists. Driving past “ornamental wrought-iron gates” and through a long “roadway shaded by tall majestic pine trees,” visitors entered a private sanctuary far away from their stressful lives and, most importantly for nudists, far from restrictive social conventions.144
Sunshine Park’s sprawling grounds, highlighted by the “Great Egg Harbor River,” did not disappoint tourists in search of nature. The “unusual body of water” located at the center of the grounds constituted a unique ecological resource. With the river displaying a “strong color of tea” and containing “remedial elements derived from the cedar forest through which it flows,” the camp boasted of its natural therapeutic qualities to visitors and guests.145 Nudists claimed that the river soothed muscles and relieved any itching and irritation from rashes, bug bites, and sunburns. With a permanent dock installed on its banks, the river also lent itself to a variety of recreational activities. Completely enclosed by the dense vegetation that surrounded the river, members could use the dock to freely sunbathe, dive, or swim in the nude. More adventuresome guests could also partake in canoeing, rowing, waterskiing, or even power boating.146
The construction of a permanent concrete gate in front of Sunshine Park in Mays Landing, New Jersey, communicated a sense of stability and permanence that gave visitors confidence in the resort and the movement’s place in American society. (Dana, “Sunshine Park: A Nudist Mecca,” Sunshine and Health, June 1954, 14; courtesy of the Sunshine and Health Publishing Company)
Assuming a standard gender division of labor that assigned women the responsibility for child care, a 1957 promotional piece presented the sandy beach of Sunshine Park’s river as the perfect play area to keep “junior out of Mother’s way for hours.”147 With a “bucket and shovel,” children could create “sandy castles for Daddy to admire, and holes in the beach in which he may sprain an ankle.”148 Therapeutic and recreational, the nature-oriented grounds of Sunshine Park provided the setting for an idyllic, nature-filled family vacation without undermining the gender ideals and expectations that grounded the postwar ideology of domesticity
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For nudist parks not equipped with a natural body of water like Sunshine Park’s, the swimming pool represented an absolute necessity. Like many postwar motels and hotels that used glittering pools to entice traveling families to stay a night or two, nudist resorts made sure to design swimming pools that would impress visitors and make them want to return.149 The ideal pool at a nudist park would be surrounded by a “beautifully patterned concrete sunning space, handsome tables and chairs, umbrellas and possibly trees.”150 In the absence of trees, a “shaded bower” could be constructed to make members more comfortable on unbearably hot or sunny days.151 The pool represented such a critical element of the nudist club that do-it-yourself articles appeared in Sunshine and Health explaining how to install heating and filtering equipment in swimming pools.152 Providing a setting for relaxed conversation, providing a way to cool down after extended sunbathing sessions, and giving children another place to play, the swimming pool represented an essential attribute for any nudist park that did not have a natural lake or river.
The sporting facilities at nudist resorts constituted another forum for family fun and socializing. With health and fitness a central component of the nudist lifestyle, Sunshine Park provided a six-acre sports quadrangle illuminated by electrical fixtures. Constituting the heart of the club where members congregated, the sports quadrangle also represented the “ideal place to meet friends and influence people.”153 When not socializing, guests could play volleyball, shuffleboard, tennis, or badminton and engage in many other athletic activities well into the night.154 While members liked to sample other sports and activities, the “national game of nudists everywhere” was volleyball.155 The game grew in popularity among nudists for several reasons. In addition to being easily set up and lacking complicated rules, it allowed many players, both male and female, young and old, to participate simultaneously with relatively little opportunity for awkward running, jumping, or physical contact.156 A game of volleyball also relieved the jitters of novice nudists by focusing the members’ eyes away from each other and onto a ball and net. Providing a relaxed social atmosphere and the opportunity for exercise, fitness, and health, nudists appealed directly to postwar families in search of leisure.
When inclement weather descended on Sunshine Park, the huge forty-by-forty-six-foot clubhouse allowed members to continue to enjoy themselves with a variety of activities.157 A record player and player piano played music for dancing and music aficionados. Meanwhile, the availability of chess, checkers, and books appealed to guests seeking relaxation. At night, the clubhouse often offered entertainment with shows that featured “professional—and not so professional talent.”158 In addition, a party held in the clubhouse usually commemorated every calendar holiday. From strenuous sporting activities in the hot sun to leisurely entertainment in the clubhouse, Sunshine Park provided a number of activities for its guests regardless of the weather.
To specifically appeal to mothers and to help men convince their wives to visit nudist camps, many camp managers put a great deal of effort and resources into children’s play areas. Again assuming that women shouldered the responsibility for child care, one article in Sunshine and Health reiterated an unequal, gendered division of labor when it quoted a mother who appreciated having “some place where the kids [could] go” and she could “relax.”159 By “taking the trouble” to please the “short attention spans of children” through playgrounds, pool areas, and beaches, the camp avoided the problem of naked children “running around camp annoying all” and strengthened the “nudist cause of tomorrow by making a nudist childhood so very pleasant.”160 More importantly, attention to raising a child in a nudist camp embraced the postwar ideals of domesticity. Sunshine Park provided swings, seesaws, and sandboxes to “localize tornado damage.”161 Parks also supplied sporting equipment and games to entertain children, created a smooth surface area for wagons and tricycles, provided a shady grass area with picnic tables, erected a “playground apparatus,” hung ropes for climbing, and constructed a kiddie pool with a small plastic slide.162 With the children concentrated in one area, mothers sharing child-care responsibilities, and postwar gender norms secure, “the entire nudist family [could] enjoy their vacation to the utmost, and no one [felt] left out of the fun.”163
Like postwar motels that increasingly began to offer a dining experience along with their sleeping accommodations, Sunshine Park presented several eating options for its guests. In a log structure fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, over 125 guests could eat breakfast for $0.75, lunch for $1.25, and dinner for $1.50.164 Featuring a cook with thirty-one years of experience preparing meals such as roast beef, biscuits, and coffee, the park promised guests that they would not be disappointed with the quality of food. For members who wished to dine independently, the park also provided a “neat and spacious” picnic area for families to have a barbecue or eat the meals they prepared in their cabins or trailers.165 In between meals, guests could also visit a snack bar that served sundaes, sandwiches, milk shakes, hoagies, and “what-have-you for those who don’t care a hang about their figures.”166
Many managers of nudist camps put a great deal of effort and resources into children’s play areas—another example of how nudism embraced postwar ideals of domesticity. (Sunshine and Health, August 1955, back cover; courtesy of the Sunshine and Health Publishing Company).
Similar to the promotion of Sunshine Park’s redesigned entryway and its child-care options, the presentation of its dining facilities also reflected unequal gender arrangements. In an article written to a male audience, Lillian Wright boasted that undressed waitresses might add “extra piquancy” to the meal since they were “cuties who have as much eye appeal as the food.”167 Writing as an “older” person and taking time to discuss the children’s playground, Wright’s homemaker persona restrained her sexist and erotic statements while also reflecting the potential male voyeurism that prevailed at the resort. Although American nudism promoted its family-friendly facilities by denying the eroticism of social nakedness, some of its promotional literature revealed that many members continued to appreciate young, attractive, female bodies.
Not to be outdone by any local motels or hotels surrounding nearby Atlantic City, Sunshine Park provided several different accommodations for guests to choose from when planning their trip. Asserting that “you give up nothing in the way of comfort when you go back-to-nature at Sunshine Park,” camp managers rented sleeping quarters by the week, month, or the “entire sunning season.”168 For members who made reservations well in advance, they could satisfy their “pioneering spirit” by staying in a “genuine log cabin.” “Playing its ace,” the management at Sunshine Park also provided two “immense dormitories” capable of housing sixty guests each.169 The thirty rooms in each dormitory, designed to host individual families, opened into a screened hall that led to a lavatory center where guests would “find everything [they were] accustomed to at home.”170 Already available at a low rate, the dorms represented a particularly good deal with linen and bedding service provided for no charge.171 While guests could still use their army-surplus tents as they had done in the past, many families chose to take advantage of the convenience and comfort of resort-style sleeping accommodations.
For members who had visited Sunshine Park for more than a year and desired more privacy, they could purchase a lot measuring twenty-five feet by one hundred feet within the camp grounds to construct a summer home. With lots close to the highway being the most affordable and river frontage being more expensive, the camp required that members sign a fifteen-year renewable lease, promise to follow a “minimum of management controls,” and construct a home that would “further enhance the appearance of the community.”172 Preferring not to construct “palaces,” members generally erected “neat cabins and homes that reflected the inclinations and status of their inhabitants.”173 With cabins to fit any budget, families could enjoy the comforts of home while still experiencing all the benefits and activit
ies that Sunshine Park had to offer.
Unfortunately, the construction of cabins, more often than not, presented several problems for the manager of a nudist camp. The negotiations over the lease often led to hard feelings, the appearance of the final structure frequently did not live up to expectations, and maintenance of the permanent building proved costly and time consuming. Furthermore, many members did not want to invest in the construction of a cabin when they did not actually own the land where the structure would stand. While the intimacy and privacy of the summer cabin re-created the domestic environment of home, the potential financial disadvantages limited its popularity.
Trailers, placed in designated “parking areas,” provided another popular form of accommodation at Sunshine Park and many other postwar nudist camps.174 The nudist “trailer park” provided a convenient compromise for both the camp manager and members who desired more comfortable accommodations. Anticipating a “great upsurge in their appearances in nudist camps,” many camp managers began constructing trailer parks across the United States.175 In this “specifically planned area,” the popular “vacation camp trailer” was parked in “somewhat more spacious individual parking spaces” next to a small patio with a water and electrical connection and a standardized pit to care for sink drainage water.176 This area also included a “boundaried dirt or grass roadway” with a “convenient, non-hazardous entry and exit to the trailer parking plot.”177 Cheaper than building a cabin and involving considerably less financial risk while still providing the comfort of a summer home, camping trailers gave many nudists, who already visited the camp using their car, a fantastic way to frequent a nudist camp.
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