From the July 17, 1934 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Here it is, mid-July on Martha’s Vineyard, a pleasant time at a pleasant place. We are always tempted at about this phase of every summer season to look around and take stock; or, if that is too businesslike a phrase to use in association with the Island, to form a picture of the busy, idle summer.

This year we can report that the trend seems to be definitely against tops for men’s bathing suits. Some such development simply had to come. There has been a rising insurgency for a number of years. In and about New York City, we read, magistrates’ courts are disagreeing with one another as to whether the male torso must be completely covered. Whatever may happen in New York, on the Vineyard the liberals are in the ascendancy. This, we take it, is because so many bathers are young, and youth does things differently, its own way, inviting middle age and age to follow. The invitation is often accepted.

The revival of bicycling continues, but not to the degree we should like to see. We are still far from a revival of the age of wheelmen on the Vineyard, when fancy riders scorched over the first tar street and walks, or attracted crowds with their exhibitions. The bicycle is coming back slowly, giving pleasure to a few more individuals each summer, and this season there are undoubtedly more wheels on the road than there were last.

Roller skates are not in evidence. Perhaps they are laid up for summer, or confined to indoors. This we record without any feeling one way or another, for we happen not to have the warmth of admiration for the roller skate that we have for the bicycle.

Shorts are being worn, and we hail this as a step against that formality of dress toward which we seemed to be heading as recently — or as remotely — as 1929.

As to the so-called Helen Wills sports caps of a few years ago, they have been completely forgotten. Why even bring them up? Perhaps they were an epidemic one only imaged.

Nude bathing is still rumored, and still rumored in whispers, with breath more or less bated. From past experience with the way these things go, one assumes that until it is spoken of openly it cannot be considered a Menace.

There are still no patched pants in evidence in summer circles. Perhaps national recovery has averted them. At any rate, summer dress, for both sexes, seems more decorative, more gay than ever before. Color is, perhaps, less lavish, but those who design summer costumes and those who dress in them seem to know how to build a few bits of cloth into effects which blend with the sunshine and sea breezes. Yes, it is a gay summer.

To conclude, the observer must conclude that summer activity is striking a good pace, but that there is still plenty of room for more vacationers and for more good times.

Martha’s Vineyard has survived many changes in customs and styles. Human nature flows this way and that, in waves, and you never know who or what is going to be made or unmade by the next shift.

The universality of the automobile caused a revolution in vacations as in everything else. People had a new diversion, that of touring, and proceeded to enjoy it to the utmost. The Vineyard adapted itself to the automobile by improving its system of roads, so that summer visitors enjoy motoring; and the more crowded the mainland highways became, the more the Vineyard roads were enjoyed. There used to be agitation for ferry service so that the transient tourist could get to the Island, and cars could be taken across the Sound in thousands. Fortunately this idea died aborning. Not all progress is improvement.

Since the war there has been a widespread desire to take vacation trips abroad, and many familiar faces have been missing from the Island towns in summer for that reason.

Those who are in the hotel business say that changes of customs and tastes have taken place there, too. The vogue for summer camps for children has drawn away from the old fashioned family hotel.

All the changes have affected the Vineyard less than mainland places, for the custom of summering at the seashore has persisted through everything, and remains quite undiminished. Hundreds of fine schemes have been attempted on the Vineyard, ranging all the way from the bubble land developments of the seventies to the Martha’s Vineyard Railroad of romantic memory. With the passing of years, all the most striking and sensational of man’s schemes have had their moment and passed away; but the attraction of the open shore, the free waters of the ocean, and the countryside itself have remained.

Our experience seems to show that conservatism in a summer resort community is an excellent thing. Conserve the resources we have (and seclusion is one of them). Don’t give way an inch to encroachments which may be in demand today but will certainly be left high and dry by the shifting taste and fashion of tomorrow.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

library@vineyardgazette.com