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Getting Wet and Cleaning Up: Swimming, Social Class, and Space in 1950s Barcelona

Abstract This article explores how the local elites in the city of Barcelona attempted to use swimming clubs, specifically the construction of new pools, to remake the urban landscape and to empower themselves. With minimal to no access to formal politics under a dictatorship, sports became the sphere by which Barcelona’s bourgeoisie developed mechanisms to civilize the masses. The1950s was a decade in which Spain transitioned from the years of hunger and the period of autarky to a modernizing phase. As this article suggests, participation in swimming clubs provided a channel for re-constructing the parameters of civil society as early as the 1950s. Using Barcelona as a case study helps us flesh out how elites attempted to use swimming to target children, improve hygienic conditions, and promote community welfare.