With temperatures soaring and summer well underway, countless Americans will be spending their Independence Day weekend at the beach. Here we revisit some classic images from the turn-of-the-century to the 1930's of vacations by the sea, from Coney Island to Santa Monica.

Bristol celebrates “wonderful diversity” at St Paul's carnival on Saturday, July 6, 2019. Thousands filled the streets for the city’s 51st procession highlighting the contribution of the Windrush generation. (Photo by Alex Turner/The Guardian)

Asbjørg Nesje from Norway is a participant and trains in front of the Opera House in Oslo, Norway, on August 25, 2023, one day before the 2023 World Championship in Døds Diving (Death Diving). According to the organisers, Døds is “a form of extreme freestyle diving from heights jumping with stretched arms and belly first, landing in a cannonball or a shrimp position”. (Photo by Javad Parsa/NTB via AFP Photo)

A dancer poses for a photograph as part of the “Dance as Art” photo project in Times Square in New York, on September 22, 2014. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Joseph Szabo was a frustrated high-school teacher in need of inspiration – so he started photographing his students, and captured all the angst and excitement of being caught between childhood and adulthood. Here: “Priscilla”, 1969. (Photo by Joseph Szabo/Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery/The Guardian)

With temperatures soaring and summer well underway, countless Americans will be spending their Independence Day weekend at the beach. Here we revisit some classic images from the turn-of-the-century to the 1930's of vacations by the sea, from Coney Island to Santa Monica.

A keeper feeds a four-week-old jaguar while presenting it to the media, at a zoo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, October 14, 2015. (Photo by Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Firefighters take part in the bodybuilding event during a firefighting skills contest at the National Fire Service Academy in Gongju, South Korea on June 3, 2024. (Photo by Shin Hyeon-jong)