Surfing

20th-century Fad

From the 1920s to the 1940s, surfing was popular among a fraternity of hardy participants (many of whom were lifeguards) on the American West Coast. It was during the late 1950s, however, that the sport underwent exponential growth. This was partly because of a revolution in surfboard design and manufacture. The introduction of new materials such as polyurethane foam and fiberglass allowed the introduction of shorter and more lightweight surfboards. Longboards remained popular, [Page 689]but the introduction of shortboards (which averaged 6 feet 6 inches in length) allowed surfers to achieve faster speeds and make tighter turns and quicker maneuvers. This not only radically changed the way people surfed but also significantly increased the appeal of the sport.

As Drew Kampion, an author of several books on surfing and former editor of Surfer magazine, stated, “Surfing is the simple act of walking on water,” and the history of surfing is “the sum total of all waves ever ridden.”

By the late 1950s, a discernable surfing culture was taking shape. Along the Los Angeles and Orange County coastlines, an army of young surfers loaded their boards onto their “woodies” (wooden-paneled station wagons that represented the surfer's quintessential transport) and set out to pit their skills against the waves at a host of evocatively named surfing spots—Zuma Beach, Paradise Cove, The Wedge, Doheny, Mile Zero, Trestles, and many more. Surfing also grew in popularity along the American East Coast, Hawaii, Australia, and South Africa.

The growth of surfing was part of a general expansion of leisure industries geared to the teenage market during the 1950s and 1960s. During the early 1960s, especially, surfing developed into a major teenage pastime. The growing popularity of the sport was galvanized by the release of numerous movies with a surfing theme—for example, Gidget (1959) and Beach Party (1963)—and the success of surfing-oriented pop songs released by pop groups such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.

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