So weird. My husband always wonders about how people went to the bathroom ‘back then’. Right now he’s reading 1776 by David McCullough and he got to the part where Washington just moved into a house. He was asking me if I knew how long it would take him to go to the bathroom since he is clothed in revolutionary garb. Speaking of dress, that lead him asking how long it might take Marie Antoinette.
Then there is always the conversation of what did they do without indoor plumbing? How gross was it? Is there documentation anywhere of how the cave people went to the bathroom?
Just wondering if anyone knows of a book that has the history of bathroom usage through the ages. He brings this up a lot.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
by Linalaughs
10 Comments
If I remember correctly there’s a decent bathroom section in Bill Bryson’s At Home
im curious now too, cant wait to see if you get any answers. although your husband is kinda giving me George Costanza vibes with all his bathroom talk
I’m sorry, I don’t have a suggestion. I just wanted to say I love that you’re searching for this for him. Good luck!
Take a look at Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay. Just for the laugh.
There’s quite a bit of bathroom talk in ‘The Ghost Map’. It details a cholera outbreak in London.
Essentially, reasonably well off houses just had a large pit under the toilet that cleaners would empty out into wheel barrows and dump into the Thames. The smell was so bad that it was thought to be killing people and the wealthy areas were upwind of the river.
Less well off people would just use a bucket and were allowed to dump it out into the street after certain hours. Presumably this was swept up before the morn and dumped in the Thames.
By all accounts, large cities at the time reeked and were thought to be completely unsustainable.
there are definitely kids books about the history of bathrooms. And i’m sure there are adult books as well.
You can tell him that it wouldn’t take Marie Antoinette that long. Her pantaloons would have been slit from front to back so nothing to pull down and she would have had a servant who would have held the chamber pot or she would have just stood over a stool with a pot in it. No sitting required when you’re the queen.
Lucy Worsely *If walls could talk* has a chapter on the bathroom.
If Walls Could Talk: An intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley covers bathrooms. There’s even a TV series that has a full episode. I recommend it also for the sheer hilarity of her grabbing a 1700s ladies pee pot, sticking it under her huge period accurate skirts and looking directly at the camera while saying “You’ll never guess what *I’m* doing.”
Ruth Goodman goes into a lot of detail about bathroom habits in her books on Tudor/Elizabethan and Victorian England.
Not sure any of these are exactly what you’re looking for, but:
*The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet* by Julie L. Horan
*Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization* by W. Hodding Carter
*Wiped: The Curious History of Toilet Paper* and *The Shocking History of Pee* by Ronald H. Blumer
*The History of Toilets: How Civilization Learned to Wash Its Hands* by Raymond Davey
*Life of Pee: The Story of How Urine Got Everywhere* by Sally Magnusson
There are also several children’s books that talk about these things, like *Poop Happened!: A History of the World from the Bottom Up* by Sarah Albee
Again, not sure if these are what you’re looking for, but hopefully one will be able to keep your husband entertained!