Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

"Montrose Beach, Chicago, 1946." Another colorful entry from this batch of 35mm Kodachrome slides found on eBay. View full size.
Strictly-speaking, this was a "two-piece".
The bikini bottom was cut more briefly and really did not come into general use until after 1946 (although the bikini was "invented" and named that year).
The near tower now sits in the middle of a long berm, so you can no longer see the water from the original vantage point. The far tower sits on a breakwater.

I checked Google Maps and was amazed to see that the two light towers are still there.
When the the bikini was "in" but the navel could not be "out."
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