You should have said so before we left the house
Bathrooms through the ages
BY Lynn Cunningham
Illustration by Slobo Mitic
1836 Thomas Crapper is born, and eventually becomes a plumber in Victorian England. More than a century later, Wallace Reyburn publishes Flushed with Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper, accelerating one of the most enduring bathroom-related urban myths: that Crapper invented the flush toilet. The flush toilet mechanism actually dates to 1819.
1897 The Globe carries a monthly mortality report, listing the number of deaths from illnesses commonly associated with poor sanitation. The July numbers include two deaths from typhoid and 57 from cholera infantum. Meanwhile, Toronto is dithering over a comprehensive sewage disposal plan. Sewage farm? Chemical treatment? Trunk sewer? Of the latter notion, which would empty waste straight into the harbour (rather like what Victoria still does), the chief offi cer of health says it should be “condemned at every point.”
1918 The fall-winter Eaton’s catalogue offers the “Eaton’s Imperial Bath Room,” including bath, sink and “closet combination”—shipping weight approximately 525 pounds—for $82.40. Chances are a bigger seller is the $1.75 enamel “chamber pail” (“capacity 11 2/3 quarts”), given that minimum wages top out at about $15 a week.
1950 Families typically have three or four children, occupying houses like one advertised for sale in then-suburban Toronto: a “beautiful” six-room home with three bedrooms and one “four-piece tiled bath.” There’s even a picket fence. These days, average family size has shrunk to three people, but what’s grown is the number of bathrooms: three aren’t uncommon in newer three-bedroom homes.
1970s Bathrooms are getting bigger and bigger, and often uglier too. As one rather restrained decorating article of this period notes, “bright jewel colors of the sixties are reappearing—pinks, red, and deep blues.” Not to mention plastic towelbars and toothbrush holders in chocolate brown or olive green, coral- and avocado-coloured porcelain and burlap wallpaper. To eradicate these kind of features that cause real-estate agents heart attacks: $45,000 and up in today’s dollars.
2007 Now that the days of cholera infantum are over and everyone has her own bathroom, researchers are investigating whether we can be too clean. Their theory: Without enough exposure to germs when they’re young, children can fail to develop healthy immune systems. One study involves giving kids a bacteria-laced “dirt pill.”
