The Enduring Fascination With Women in Water

Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, located some 50 miles north of Tampa, Florida, is best known for its mermaids. Since 1947, synchronized swimmers in shimmering tails have performed for audiences in the park’s 400-seat aquariumlike theater, which is built roughly 16 feet below the surface of the Weeki Wachee River’s crystalline spring. As a young girl, watching their water ballet through a wall of glass, I studied the mermaids’ every move in astonishment. Their talents and allure were otherworldly—the soft billowing of their hair, the smooth weightlessness of their movements, the poise they maintained in environs inhospitable to any mere mortal.

The Weeki Wachee mermaid show was among dozens of roadside attractions that capitalized on the success of Esther Williams, a former competitive swimmer who parlayed her talents in the pool into movie stardom in the 1940s and ’50s. Her films, often dubbed “aquamusicals,” were known for their impressive underwater choreography and synchronized-swimming