A bath house is a place where people bathe. The term is most commonly used for public bath houses, where people bathe publicly. Public bath houses offer varying degrees of privacy; some are segregated by sex and/or age, while others offer private baths, and are only public in the sense that anyone may use the facilities.
Bath houses are relatively rare in Western societies; most people in such cultures utilize private bathing facilities. However, other cultures have a long tradition of public bath house use; for example, see the sentos of Japan. The sweat lodges of various Native American cultures may be considered bath houses, although they do not involve immersion in water. Entrance to the sentÅ at the Edo Tokyo Open Air Museum SentÅ (éŠæ¹¯, ã›ã‚“ã¨ã†) is a type of Japanese communal bath house where customers pay for entrance. ... The sweat lodge is a ceremonial sauna used by North American First Nations or Native American peoples. ... Native Americans (also Indians, Aboriginal Peoples, American Indians, First Nations, Alaskan Natives, Amerindians, or Indigenous Peoples of America) are the indigenous inhabitants of The Americas prior to the European colonization, and their modern descendants. ...
Bathhouses were sometimes legitimate, and sometimes quasi-legitimate, conjoined with the offices of a brothel, hosting rooms for entertaining, banqueting, and purchasing and enjoying sexual services.
Bathhouses were known as 'stews', a word that then remained associated with all brothels, even those not in baths.
In Japan, nude communal bathing for men, women and children at the local public bath, or sento, was a daily fact of life until the mid-1800s and an increase in Western influences.
Bathhouses are mentioned frequently in the Talmud, the religious authority for traditional Judaism.
The Charlton Street bathhouse was unique among the three Third Ward shvitz's because of a special addition: It was the only one of the three that had a Mikvah.
The Mercer Baths was a typical shvitz, similar to its two competitors, the Charlton and Howard baths, with wet and dry steam, the masseurs, and all the health treatments that the typical shvitz of the 1920s era offered.
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