All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890

Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology

by Maureen Ogle

As any American who has traveled abroad knows, the American home contains more, and more elaborate, plumbing than any other in the world. Indeed, Americans are renowned for their obsession with cleanliness. Although plumbing has occupied a central position in American life since the mid-nineteenth century, little scholarly attention has been paid to its history. Now, in All the Modern Conveniences, Maureen Ogle presents a fascinating study that explores the development of household plumbing in nineteenth-century America. Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in mansions and first-class hotels. Then, in the decade before midcentury, Americans representing a wider range of economic circumstances began to install household plumbing with increasing eagerness. Ogle draws on a wide assortment of contemporary sources―sanitation reports, builders' manuals, fixture catalogues, patent applications, and popular scientific tracts―to show how the demand for plumbing was prompted more by an emerging middle-class culture of convenience, reform, and domestic life than by fears about poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation. She also examines advancements in water-supply and waste-management technology, the architectural considerations these amenities entailed, and the scientific approach to sanitation that began to emerge by century's end.

Genres: History

232 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2000

About the author

Historian, author. World-class ranter (at least in my own mind). (And who else's mind should count??)

More info at maureenogle.com; lots of info; probably more than you want.

Voracious reader for over a half century (yeah, I'm old). I say, with no fear of exaggeration, that reading made my nightmarish childhood tolerable. Don't ask me to imagine a world without books; the idea is too terrifying, too painful.

Other stuff (not so serious) you may want to know: Check your ego at the door, and if you're lacking a sense of humor, don't bother to knock. 'Nuff said.

Now go read something!