Swimming without Water: Popular Physical Education in Berlin and Buenos Aires, 1880–1930

Abstract By the turn of the century, swimming had become an important activity for city dwellers who wished to participate in modern life. Considered essential for children and adults alike, it was a leisure activity for working people, as well as a sport best practiced in clubs. However, opportunities to swim in cities were limited, as urban infrastructure could hardly cope with the new size of booming cities, let alone provide them with swimming pools. Consequently, journalists, experts, politicians, and physicians developed the concept of “swimming without water” as a means of strengthening the body for urban life. This article examines the emergence of modern bodily exercise practices in urban contexts, focusing on how physical culture reflected social, technological, and cultural transformations in Berlin and Buenos Aires at the turn of the century. Through an analysis of popular magazines and self-help discourses, it demonstrates how bodies were shaped by transnational influences, technological innovations, and consumer capitalism. Debates about physical exercise show a globalizing body ideal characterized by muscularity, health, and resilience, which often transcended national identities. They also reveal an ambivalent and improvised relationship to modernity. The proponents of physical practices often rejected modern urban life rhetorically while relying on modern concepts such as science, medicine, or photography. Practices such as swimming without water and home-based workouts served as an improvisational response to infrastructure deficits. The body became a site of negotiating this ambivalent and improvised modernity as bodily cultures became a vital part of urban modernity.