Swimming has not always been a popular activity for school children. From boys roughhousing in streams to schools building pools for swimming lessons, children have been encouraged to swim in different capacities. Public bathhouses were places that allowed for the urban poor to wash off if they did not have bathing facilities. The creation of the filtered indoor pool lead to organized sports where both boys and girls were encouraged to participate. Black children were not excluded from bathhouses, but were not allowed in the segregated swimming pools of the New Deal era.

Overall, through the indoors, the outdoors, the filtered and the unfiltered. Children swam differently in different spaces in the early 1900s, but it informs our perceptions and activities today. Further research could be done into girls competitive swimming and more specifically into girls swimming classes in PE.