by Patricia J. Benjamin

Massage has played an important part in the ancient quest for bodily perfection. Swedish massage, in particular, was an important element of beauty culture in the United States during the last century, and remains a mainstay of the spa experience today.

The origins of this association can be traced back to classical Greek ideals of beauty. The marble statues of the ancient Greek gymnasium and Roman baths attest to the value those cultures placed on the beauty of the human figure. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, the ideal of bodily perfection was pursued with exercise, baths and massage.

In more modern times, Pehr Ling’s system of educational and medical gymnastics picked up the theme. Dr. Roth’s Institution, a movement cure clinic in London established in 1850, advertised services for the “treatment of deformities and many chronic diseases, and for the strengthening and due development of the healthy body, and improvement of the figure.” The treatments offered there included Swedish gymnastics, Russian baths and the water cure. Dr. Roth gave an initial consultation, and then made the prescriptions for active and passive movements that were carried out by both male and female attendants.

20th Century Reducing Salons

Figure improvement and weight reduction had become a national concern in the United States by the early 20th century. Size consciousness heightened due, in part, to the introduction of ready-to-wear clothing that called attention to size. Reducing salons became a familiar fixture on the American urban landscape by the 1920s. An ad in a 1926 playbill from the Tremont Theatre in Boston reads, “Reducing—Modern Scientific Methods—Health and Beauty Culture Studio.” Services offered to women exclusively included exercise, electric baths, massage, light and electrotherapy.

Similar ads in a playbill from the Curran Theatre in San Francisco (1935) showcase reducing services including massage. Elvina Beiling promised, “Figure Correcting Through Genuine Swedish Massage—Reducing Measurements Without Diet—Guaranteed.” (See Figure 1.) Isabelle Henley offered a “special summer course for reducing—$8 per month—reduce your weight now and save money.” And Al Williams’ Health System for Women at the Western Women’s Club asked, “What do the lines of your gown reveal?” It went on to say, “Our planned, individual programs of contour correction can and do definitely achieve results.”

By the 1940s, beauty culture and massage were firmly linked in the salons of mainstream America. Graduates of the College of Swedish Massage in Chicago found jobs in upscale salons like Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein. The school catalog from the early 1940s notes that “the constant quest for beautiful figures among women, and trim waistlines among men, has caused thousands to turn to massage for aid in attaining good body contour.”

By 1947, even the largely segregated African-American community in Chicago had salons run by and for citizens of that ethnic group. There were places like Calena’s Massage and Health Institute on 63rd Street (Reduce the Calena Way), Viv-Von Institute of Swedish Massage on South Wabash, and Woodlawn Reducing Salon on Cottage Grove (Scott’s Blue Book, 1947).

Reducing Methods

A typical reducing program might include methods familiar to us today like exercise, diet and massage. Also used were steam cabinets or sweatboxes meant to perspire the pounds off, a temporary water loss at best. A curious device called an electric light cabinet was another type of box patrons sat in with only their heads sticking out. Electric lightbulbs inside the cabinet bathed the person’s body in what was thought to be artificial sunlight.

Various machines promised an effortless road to weight loss. These machines claimed to roll, vibrate and shake the body into the desired shape. One such device from 1915, the Gardner Rolling Machine, is shown in Figure 2.

Reducing massage was taught as a specialty at the College of Swedish Massage in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. Esther Swanson, former dean of the school, described reducing massage as similar to general body massage, except that there are more “manipulations which are most effective in reaching the deeper tissues.” That is, there is more petrissage (e.g., kneading) and a technique called “twisting” or wringing of muscle tissue (Swanson, 1957). A demonstration of reducing massage on the thigh is shown in Figure 3, page 154. Reducing treatments were 30 to 40 minutes in length, and recommended to be received four times a week.

Advising patrons on nutrition was often part of the service at reducing salons. Therefore, training for masseurs and masseuses in the 1930s and 1940s included “dietetics” or nutrition. The catalog from the College of Swedish Massage (1940) mentions that students are taught the general principles of nutrition, as well as about vitamins and minerals: “All that he or she needs to know about dietetics in his or her capacity as a Massage Expert.”

One Therapist’s Experience

Eva (Karle) Nemeth’s career as a massage practitioner spanned more than 50 years. Her story is a personal account of the training and work of a therapist in mid-20th century America. In a 1989 interview, Nemeth reminisced about her time as a student at the Mellquist School of Swedish Massage in Chicago in 1938, and about her early experience in the field.

In the 1930s, the Mellquist School program included classroom learning as well as working at the school’s reducing salon on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. This was a time when being a masseuse was a very respectable occupation for women. Students wore white starched nurses’ uniform dresses and white shoes. At the salon, patrons received 30-minute body massages (i.e., no face or head) with a white crème or mineral oil. The price of a massage was about $1.50, and patrons bought a book of coupons for a series of sessions.

Nemeth remembered doing about 16 massages a day as a student. “Scrub girls” and “showers girls” helped patrons with dressing and showering and kept them moving. Student masseuses stayed at the tables, and did massages one right after the other.

After her graduation in 1938, Nemeth worked at the Medinah Club on Michigan Avenue in Chicago as a masseuse and gymnastics (calisthenics) teacher. In the early 1940s, she moved on to Olde Meadows Milk Farm in Fox Lake, Illinois, an old mansion converted to a reducing resort for wealthy women. She worked there as a masseuse and exercise teacher until she left in 1944 to work in the war effort at a Chicago factory. Nemeth said that after the war in the 1950s, massage was not considered respectable as a woman’s career choice, and she ceased work in the field until some years later.

Myth Of Reducing Massage

Of course, there is no credible research that supports the theory that vigorous massage helps one lose weight, or is effective for “spot reducing.” Even in the heyday of reducing massage in the 1930s, critics in the medical field warned against such “violent massage,” and called it mauling. 

It was reported in an article in Hygeia (1935) that some women were being injured in attempt to remove fat over the abdomen. “Violent abdominal manipulation has been the cause of uterine displacement, injury to abdominal adhesions, acute flare-up of quiescent gallbladder and appendix disease, and many other conditions ....” Figure 4 from that same article depicts “the most willing victim of violent massage ... the woman who wants to reduce.”

The Hygeia article outlines the classic advertising pitch for reducing massage “that even if she does not reduce in weight, she will lose in inches and that the mauling [massage] she receives is necessary to ‘break up the fat’ so that it may be more easily removed.” This is a familiar refrain that pops up periodically even today in the guise of removing cellulite.

The truth is that therapeutic massage is a valuable adjunct to a complete weight reduction strategy that includes a more healthy diet, exercise, stress reduction and other lifestyle changes.
But massage alone is not a panacea for reducing fat or thinning the thighs.

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Patricia J. Benjamin, Ph.D., is coauthor of Tappan’s Handbook of Healing Massage Techniques and Understanding Sports Massage. She has been writing and teaching about the history of massage therapy since the early 1980s. She is currently executive director of the Chicago School of Massage Therapy, and can be reached by telephone at: 773-477-9444, or via E-mail at: pjb@csmt.com.

Bibliography

Benjamin, Patricia J. “Interview with Eva Karle Nemeth.” 1989. 

College of Swedish Massage Catalog. Chicago, 1940.

Curran Theatre. Playgoer: Official Program of the Curran Theatre. San Francisco, 1935.
Lautman, Maurice F. “Massage versus Mauling.” Hygeia. March, 1935.

Roth, M. The Prevention and Cure of Many Chronic Diseases by Movements. London: John Churchill, 1851.

Scott’s Blue Book: A classified business and service directory of greater Chicago’s colored citizens commercial, industrial, professional, religious, and other activities (1947 edition). Chicago Historical Society.

Swanson, Esther C. Scientific Massage: Theory and Practice. Assignments 1-4. Chicago: School of Swedish Massage, 1957.

Tremont Theatre Playbill. Boston, 1926.