With Donald Trump recently elected the 47th president of the United States, there’s renewed interest in the White House and its unique features — including its famous swimming pools.
So in honor of the recent election day, here’s a bit of history about presidents and their relationships with swimming pools.
Presidents Swimming for Therapy
Franklin D. Roosevelt had the first White House swimming pool built in 1933. Roosevelt swam regularly for exercise and had been doing so ever since his 1921 polio diagnosis. So just 10 days after he took office, The New York Daily News established a Roosevelt Swimming Pool Fund to raise money to construct a pool at the White House.
The fundraising campaign raised $12,000, mostly from New York private donors. The campaign understood the importance of a pool for the president’s health, stating: “Swimming is the only sport in which he can indulge. It is the one sport which he enjoys to the utmost, which will keep him in perfect physical condition.”
Construction of the pool took three months. The indoor pool was located inside the west terrace between the White House and the West Wing. President Roosevelt took his first plunge on June 2, 1933.
The pool installed for FDR became iconic, and it also showcased swimming’s rehabilitative qualities. Although FDR was paralyzed from the waist down, he maintained a passion for water exercises, using the pool regularly to strengthen his upper body and alleviate tension. FDR helped show that swimming can be used as a form of therapy, bringing attention to how the sport can help people with disabilities.
Roosevelt used this pool regularly, as did subsequent presidents, including Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Kennedy swam regularly to stay fit and to manage his chronic back pain. According to rumors, Kennedy swam in the White House pool with women who were not his wife. A former member of his college swim team, Kennedy encouraged Americans to pursue fitness and promoted swimming as a healthy lifestyle choice. The Kennedy family also hosted public swimming events, which inspired many Americans to view the sport as an ideal exercise.
Swimming for Civil Rights
Lyndon B. Johnson swam in the White House pool naked and reportedly invited the evangelical minister Billy Graham to join him in the buff. President
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Although LBJ wasn’t particularly known as a swimmer, perhaps no other president affected the country’s relationship with swimming pools more than Johnson.
The “swim-in” protests of the early 1960s were acts of civil disobedience that highlighted racial segregation in public swimming pools across the United States. By the time the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed, swim-ins had already made national headlines.
One of the most famous of these took place in St. Augustine, Florida, in June 1964, just weeks before President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. This protest was organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights organization co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was actively involved in St. Augustine’s desegregation efforts.
On June 18, 1964, a group of Black and white civil rights activists entered the whites-only swimming pool at the Monson Motor Lodge, a motel owned by James Brock. Brock was staunchly opposed to integration, and when he saw the activists in his pool, he responded dramatically. In an infamous act that was captured by photographers, he poured muriatic acid into the water to intimidate the protesters and force them to leave.
The images of Brock pouring acid into the pool, along with photographs of police dragging protesters out of the water, circulated widely in newspapers and on television. These images drew attention to the intense racial hatred that civil rights activists faced. The Monson Motor Lodge incident became one of the most well-known swimins, largely because of the dramatic photographs that captured the incident.
President Johnson, who had been pushing for passage of the Civil Rights Act, used the moral outrage generated by this incident to galvanize support for the bill.
When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, it officially banned discrimination in public accommodations, including hotels, restaurants, and swimming pools. The legislation made it illegal to deny anyone access to public facilities based on race, color, religion, or national origin. It was a major victory for the civil rights movement, directly addressing the segregation that swimin protesters had been challenging.
But white resistance to desegregation efforts led to the closure of public pools all over the country, giving birth to the popular backyard pool — for those who could afford it.
Presidents and Pool Legislation
There aren’t many federal laws related to pools and spas, but it was George W. Bush, who encouraged congress to pass — and which he signed into law — a major piece of pool and spa safety legislation. Following the tragic suction-entrapment drowning death of the granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker, President Bush signed The Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act in 2007.
A New White House Pool Era
The original White House pool was finally covered over in 1970, during the Nixon administration, when the White House press room was installed on top of it.
Although Nixon liked to swim, he didn’t use the pool, but he did take pains to ensure that no harm came to FDR’s pool and that it could be easily restored.
Today, the deep end of that pool is located directly underneath the podium where the press secretary stands, and the shallow end is where the camera operators are positioned. The pool remains intact beneath the floor of the room, known as the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.
The second White House swimming pool was built for Gerald Ford, who was an avid twice-daily swimmer. Often quoted as saying “15 minutes in the pool is worth two martinis,” Ford had loved swimming laps in his Alexandria, Virginia, home’s heated pool and lamented losing the activity when he became president.
So in 1975, similar to how FDR’s pool was funded, a White House Swimming Pool Committee formed and collected private donations to fund a new outdoor pool, which was built in 1975 on the South Lawn. The new pool cost about $66,800 and measured 22 by 54 feet, with a depth ranging from three to nine feet. It had a diving board at the south end and was heated for year-round swimming.
The pool has been used by presidents and first families ever since.
