In the days before car ownership spread across the land and the backseat became the mobile ground zero for romance, young folk in the United States often had to make do with coupling in canoes. That led to a moral panic centered on the perceived lax morals of young people in America’s waterways.
When Canoeing Was Suspicious
In the early twentieth century, young Americans’ options for secluded areas and make out spots were pretty limited. So they took to the water. Canoes, which had recently become widely available, offered young folk an escape from finger wagging parents and baleful chaperones, and a bit of privacy for a bit of romance in a relaxing environment over the water.
Once that bit of knowledge spread, canoe sales and permits exploded across the United States. Teenagers all across the country, wherever there was a body of water big enough to float a canoe, took to the water with the urgency of salmon fighting their way upstream to spawn. In Minneapolis, for example, 200 canoe permits were issued in 1910. Two years later, that number had exploded to more than 2000.
A term was even coined for the watery romance: “canoedling”. Unsurprisingly, buzzkill pious and prudes, appalled at the thought that some people might be having fun somewhere, hit the alarm buttons for a full blown moral panic. A contemporary Minneapolis Tribune warned the public that: “Girl Canoeists’ Tight Skirts Menace Society”. Other coverage decried the “misconduct in canoes” that threatened to “bring shame upon the city”.
As a result of the mounting hysteria over what people might be getting up to in canoes, a midnight curfew was declared, and park police began to patrol the waterways in motorized boats equipped with spotlights to catch and fine canoedling canoeists. The canoe romance trend finally died out in the 1920s, when cars and car backseats became more widely available to the masses.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Collectors Weekly – Love Boats: The Delightfully Sinful History of Canoes
History Halls – Politicians Who Couldn’t Keep it in Their Pants: Felix Faure
Star Tribune, August 1st, 2013 – Canoe Craze Marked by Romance, Ribaldry
