Tuesday, Nov. 5 is Election Day in the US and the nation’s subsequent president will likely be chosen. In honor of the occasion, let’s take a stroll down reminiscence lane and look at the historical past of swimming and the U.S. presidency.
The White Home has many facilities, together with an outside swimming pool. However earlier than the outside pool was constructed throughout Gerald Ford’s presidency, there was an indoor swimming pool put in in 1933. The pool was constructed for Franklin D. Roosevelt and was put in in 1933. 11 years earlier, Roosevelt had been identified with polio, and The Day by day Information established the Roosevelt Swimming Pool Fund to lift the cash to assemble the pool as swimming was one of many solely ways in which Roosevelt may train, in accordance with the White Home Historic Affiliation.
“Swimming is the one sport by which he can indulge. It’s the one sport which he enjoys to the utmost, which can maintain him in excellent bodily situation,” mentioned X. The fund reached its objective in two weeks.
Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson all used the indoor pool frequently throughout their time in workplace.
Kennedy was a member of the Harvard College swim group. In a 1970 interview with The Harvard Crimson, Harold Ulen, who had been the coach throughout Kennedy’s years on the group, mentioned he skilled Kennedy as a backstroker who “‘in contrast pretty nicely with the backstrokers of his day’” and remembered that he would disguise within the showers when the Kennedy photographers would come to take footage of the swimmers. Kennedy can also be remembered for his position in a dramatic swim to rescue PT-109 throughout World Battle II.
As president, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which amongst different issues, outlawed segregation in companies in addition to public locations—like public swimming swimming pools. Public swimming pools in some cities had begun desegregating a decade earlier because of the Brown v. Board of Schooling choice. Nevertheless, the next closure of many municipal swimming pools and the creation of personal swimming golf equipment is an unlucky legacy nonetheless felt in American swimming.
Nixon didn’t frequently use the White Home indoor pool and in 1970, the area was transformed into the White Home Press Room, although the White Home Historic Affiliation states it was performed in such a method that the pool may simply be restored.
5 years later, personal donations funded the White Home outside pool. Ford, the president on the time, used to swim frequently in his Alexandria pool, and his press secretary quoted Ford saying “’quarter-hour within the pool is price two martinis.’”
Ronald Reagan is well-known for his appearing profession, however like Kennedy, he swam competitively rising up. He was a member of the Eureka Faculty swim group. Per the College of Virginia’s Miller Heart, he labored six summers as a lifeguard and is credited with saving 77 folks from drowning. In 1984, he grew to become the primary U.S. president to attend the Olympic Opening Ceremony and declare the Video games open. (Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the 1932 Winter Video games because the governor of New York).
Even presidents not recognized for his or her former swimming careers or use of the White Home pool have been concerned with the game. The White Home didn’t have a pool when John Quincy Adams was president, however that didn’t cease him from swimming recreationally; when the climate was good, he would take his abilities to the Potomac River.
The sixth president stored a day by day diary and infrequently chronicled his swims. “I rise often between 4 and 5—Stroll to Miles, bathe in Potowmack river, and stroll residence,” he wrote in a July 1818 entry.
Whereas Reagan grew to become the primary sitting U.S. president to open the Olympic Video games, George W. Bush grew to become the primary sitting U.S. president to attend a global Video games. He and his father, former president George H.W Bush took images with members of the 2008 U.S. Olympic swim group together with Larsen Jensen and Michael Phelps, who after all gained eight gold medals at these Video games in Beijing. He additionally signed the primary federal pool and spa security laws, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Security Act.
Lastly, many Olympic and Paralympic swimmers have been welcomed to the White Home to rejoice their achievements. The White Home Historic Affiliation marks a June 1924 go to from the U.S. Olympic Boxing Staff as the primary time Olympians visited the White Home. Calvin Coolidge was president on the time. In 1964, a bigger group of roughly 100 U.S. Olympic medal winners attended a luncheon on the White Home, one of many first larger-scale visits from Olympians. George H.W Bush held a ceremony on the South Garden for the 1992 Olympians, much like the celebrations we’ve seen lately.
