HOUSTON A fun guessing game turned into an interesting history lesson when a Galveston museum revealed the purpose behind bathing machines used in the during the Georgian or Victorian eras. According to The Bryan Museum, bathing machines were used to offer Georgian or Victorian women privacy to undress as well as a dry place for swimmers to keep their belongings. At some locations, there were female attendants known as dippers who could help women out of the bathing machines and into the water. Just as they came, women would travel back to shore in the bathing machine and get redressed in private. According to an article on the subject by Messy Nessy Chic, the use of bathing machines diminished during the 1920s.