confronting the machine and nature in the modern bath

Excerpt

A crowd lined up early on 1 March 1915, waiting for their first glimpse inside the new Fordyce bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The resort town had been abuzz for weeks with speculation about Samuel Fordyce's elaborate renovations. As they waited, hopeful patrons undoubtedly admired its Neoclassical facade and wondered if the much-advertised, modern therapeutic equipment inside would be equally impressive. When the doors to the four-story facility finally opened, however, visitors did not immediately ascend the stairs from the lobby to the bathing rooms above. They began their tour underground at the Fordyce Spring, the bathhouse's powerful water source, which excavators had unearthed during the renovation. There they crowded around a narrow plate-glass window and peered into a small, tiled room to watch a pale blue stream emerge from the earth below and filter into a large steaming reservoir above. The water reached the surface only briefly; just as it