How Did People Take Showers 200 Years Ago?

The history of the bathroom starts with the appearance of a bathing bowl several thousand years ago. At the same time, neither its function nor form has undergone radical changes. A standard bathtub in a typical apartment differs little from a tub found during excavations of ancient cities.

Marble bathtub in the 3rd century BC

In medieval Europe, bathing was considered a sin, which led to the spread of various diseases. However, by the 19th century, Europeans had reconsidered and returned to bathing procedures. At that time, sitting tubs or basins were used instead of the bathtubs we are familiar with today.

People with means could afford tubs made from expensive materials — enamel and zinc. Those who were wealthier bought bowls made of tin. From 1840, hot water was piped into wealthy homes, and by the 1870s, bathing procedures became accessible to the middle class.

In poor households, gas water heaters were installed for heating water, but they were expensive to maintain, created a lot of noise, and posed a danger because they sometimes exploded.

In wealthy homes, innovations were installed — bathtubs with gas heaters. However, due to their cost and complexity of operation, they were used reluctantly.

At the end of the 19th century, France began producing high-quality ceramic basins for sinks and toilets.

The first was Émile Jacob, who produced plumbing taps and pipes. He joined forces with Maurice Delafontaine — a manufacturer of items made from enameled white sandstone. Together, they created a small production facility for manufacturing sanitary ceramics.

The bet on this new type of product proved to be correct. In 1889, the products of these two entrepreneurs won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition.

Shower

Originally, waterfalls served as showers for humanity. Then, throughout many centuries, people would pour water over themselves from a basin.

The first images of the shower in its modern form were found on Athenian vases dated to the 4th century BC. For example, one of them depicts two showers where four young women are bathing. The water flowing through pipes poured down on them via showerheads in the form of lion and boar heads.

A complete set of showers (beginning of the 2nd century BC) was found during excavations in Turkey. These used seven levels of shower installations. Water flowed down from the main system onto people, and then it flowed into other bathing rooms, where it entered the drainage system.

The forerunner of the modern shower cabin appeared in 1810. It was 3.5 meters in height and consisted of a reservoir basin located at the top and bottom.

The downside of such a shower was the repeated use of water: it flowed from the upper reservoir to the lower one, then rose through pipes and again poured over the person showering.

In the same year 1810, a shower curtain was invented, which also served as a towel: the fabric was soaked with aromatic oils to make the person smell pleasant after a shower.

TOILET

Toilets similar to those installed in modern bathrooms only appeared in the second half of the 19th century. Before that, the options were limited to two variants — a place for waste outdoors or a chamber pot.

The first toilet was a hybrid of a chair and a night pot — for example, the so-called “earth toilet,” invented by Henry Moyle in 1860.

In the container behind the “chair,” there was dry earth. It was just a matter of pulling a lever, and the earth would pour into the pot, which was then emptied — it was simpler and cleaner. This model somewhat resembled a cat litter box.

Forefathers of modern toilets were inconvenient and caused many problems.

In early toilets, waste products were emptied into a reservoir, and then water was poured in to flush them away into the sewer pipe. Water was not always sufficient for a successful flush. Therefore, early toilets were often installed in back rooms.

The problem of odors was solved after the invention of the toilet with a siphon (S-bend). Changes also affected the drain: while in earlier times it depended only on water pressure, in the 1870s, siphons without valves were introduced, which created a vacuum and sucked in contaminated water.

Inventions of Krappe: a tank with an automatic lever float valve that cuts off water supply and a toilet with a 'water lock' in the shape of a U-bend drain pipe.

FAUCET

The 'revolutionary' water tap — the first ball mixer — was invented in 1940 by Alex Manukyan.

The uniqueness of the mixer lay in the fact that instead of two taps — for hot and cold water — only one was used, which simultaneously controlled pressure and temperature. Manufacturers of plumbing fixtures were not interested in the invention, so Manukyan decided to produce and sell such mixers himself.