On the far left.

My grandmother's hair was never cut as a child. In her teen years (the 1920s), she got a bob, put away her long skirts and sleeves, and became a flapper - to the horror of her Victorian father. She wore her hair short the rest of her life.

My grandmother had hair down to or past her hips most of her post-adolescent life. She cut it twice ever, once when she was very old (and the trims that followed that), and wanted hair that was easier to care for, and once when she was 19, when she bobbed it. I asked, "Why did you bob your hair?"

She answered, "Because my mother expressly forbade it."

On the contrary, I think bobbed hair is most attractive and prefer women with such short hair. Of course, it is all just a matter of personal taste.

Please, dear God, don't let that bobbed hairstyle, or whatever it's called, come back into vogue. It does little for an attractive woman, and it makes the a plain woman look hideous.

Digging around, I've been able to dig up some info about the two beaches mentioned here in these photos. The Potomac bathing beach was established in 1914 more or less at the site of the Jefferson Memorial, and lasted until 1925. It replaced an earlier beach on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin that I don't believe appears in any of these photos.

The shots marked as "Arlington Beach" (e.g. this one) were taken on the Virginia side of the river. I haven't been able to pin down the location of this one exactly, because for one thing that entire strip of the shore was drastically altered all through this period and through WW II. Arlington Beach was an amusement park that sat adjacent to the old Hoover Airport which National replaced. From what I can tell, that would put it in or next to the Pentagon north parking lot. Columbia Island was then being created from the dredging that gave East and West Potomac Park their current shape. That would put this picture just west of where the Columbia Island Marina is today.

[More on the old D.C. bathing beaches here. - Dave]

With what appears to be the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Building in the background, this photo locates the old "Potomac Bathing Beach" pretty much right where the Jefferson Memorial is today.