The Rise of the Bathtub

There must come a time every spring when professors wander over to their windows, open the shades a crack and blast the weather for a fresh pile of last-minute hangover prose. Despaired, they lock themselves up in the bathroom, plunge into the tub, without undressing, and try to fight off the changing seasons with a hipflask; but the hormones are undefeatable. For my part, I won’t bother resisting and let Henry L. Mencken take over my column this week.

On Dec. 28, 1917, Mencken wrote an article for the Evening Mail, in which he lamented that Americans had forgotten the struggle endured by the bathtub on its way to becoming a household standard. “A Neglected Anniversary” was immediately condensed and republished by newspapers across the country as the following:

“The first bathtub in the United States was installed in Cincinnati December 20, 1842, by Adam Thompson. It was made of mahogany and lined with sheet lead. At a Christmas party, he exhibited and explained it and four guests later took a dip. The next day the Cincinnati paper devoted many columns to the new invention and it gave rise to violent controversy.

“Some papers designated it as an epicurean luxury, other called it undemocratic, as it lacked simplicity in its surroundings. Medical authorities attacked it as dangerous to health.

“The controversy reached other cities, and in more than one place medical opposition was reflected in legislation. In 1843, the Philadelphia Common Council considered an ordinance prohibiting bathing between November 1 and March 15, and this ordinance failed of passage by but two votes.

“During the same year the Legislature of Virginia laid a tax of $30 a year on all bathtubs that might be set up. In Hartford, Providence, Charleston and Wilmington special and very heavy water rates were laid on persons who had bathtubs. Boston, in 1845, made bathing unlawful except on medical advice, but the ordinance was never enforced and in 1862 it was repealed.

“President Millard Fillmore gave the bathtub recognition and respectability. While Vice President, he visited Cincinnati in 1850 on a stumping tour and inspected the original bathtub and used it. Experiencing no ill effects he became an ardent advocate, and on becoming President, he had a tub installed in the White House. The Secretary of War invited bids for the installation. This tub continued to be the one in use until the first Cleveland Administration.”

The story was, in fact, a complete invention, yet Mencken was shocked to discover that instead of “encouraging other inquirers” to uncover the hoax, his essay became an authority on the subject:

“Pretty soon I began to encounter my preposterous ‘facts’ in the writings of other men. They began to be used by chiropractors and other such quacks as evidence of the stupidity of medical men. They began to be cited by medical men as proof of the progress of public hygiene. They got into learned journals. They were alluded to on the floor of Congress. They crossed the ocean, and were discussed solemnly in England and on the continent. Finally, I began to find them in standard works of reference. Today, I believe, they are accepted as gospel everywhere on earth. To question them becomes as hazardous as to question the Norman invasion ...”
Harry S. Truman adamantly abused the piece of trivia when receiving guests at the White House. A 1950 profile in The New Yorker observed that “the president seemed reluctant to let go of his belief” in Fillmore’s progressive hygiene policy. If you want to see an entire community celebrating denial, come to the town of Moravia, N.Y. in July, during their traditional Fillmore Days. They will even let you race down the main drag in a four-wheel bathtub.

Have you publicized a false history of anything? Are there dubious claims you would like me to research and defend? I will soon be graduating from this newspaper, so if there is anything you’re disappointed I still haven’t written about, now is your chance to give me ideas. Send it somewhere I can read it.