A woman at Spring Lake Beach gestures toward a sign as she explains to a lifeguard why she was sunbathing topless, only to learn the rule applied to men. New Jersey, 1939. Just a few years earlier, men in many U.S. cities risked fines or arrest for appearing shirtless in public. By the late 1930s, however, many beaches had started permitting men to swim without shirts, leading to signage like the one shown in the photograph. While shirtless bathing for men quickly became widely accepted, women were still expected—both legally and socially—to keep their chests covered for decades afterward. In many parts of the United States, rules surrounding female toplessness have only begun to change in recent decades through court decisions and local policy reforms.(Historic Vids)