Chapter: 2
Gliding Return
- A Fine Little Revival
- Jack London Loves Purple
- California: The New Frontier
- Beachboy Life
- Duke Kahanamoku
- Surf Shooting Down Under
- The Bronzed Islander Shows How
- Surfing in the Jazz Age
- Tom Blake Redesigns the Sport
- What Depression?
- When Clubbies Ruled Australia
- Surfboard as Woodcraft
- Palos Verdes Surfing Club
- San Onofre: the Nearest Faraway Place
- Riding the Hot Curl
- Enter Makaha
- Death at Waimea
- The Overwhelming North Shore
A Fine Little Revival
Waikiki surfers, around 1907. Photo: Ray Jerome Baker
Teddy Roosevelt, 1870s
UK bathing machines, around 1905
Waikiki postcard, around 1900
Waikiki tourists, 1914. Photo: Ray Jerome Baker
Teddy Roosevelt, America's burly new President, unknowingly did his part to help revive surfing. A sportsman who hunted and trekked and occasionally swam nude in the Potomac River, Roosevelt was evangelical in his praise of robust outdoor activity.
Surfing’s revival in the early twentieth century made perfect sense. Seascape painters and poets had already done their part by rehabilitating the public’s regard for the ocean—what had been seen as a roiling vastness filled with sea monsters and splintered boats was now viewed as a place of beauty, self-discovery, sensuality, godliness, even comfort. “Where rolled the ocean,” dashing Romantic poe...
Subscribe or Login
Plans start at $5, cancel anytimeTrouble logging-in? Contact us.