Millard Fillmore's Bathtub |
In the New York Evening Mail of 28 December 1917 appeared an article
by H.L. Mencken entitled
"A
Neglected Anniversary." The article discussed
the very first American bathtub, how the bathtub had faced substantial
public, medical and legal opposition, and how one was eventually installed
in the White House during the administration of President Millard Fillmore.
Mencken made the whole thing up. "This article," he wrote, "was a tissue
of somewhat heavy absurdities, all of them deliberate and most of them
obvious."
"My motive," he explained later,
"was simply to have some harmless fun in war days. It never occurred to me
that it would be taken seriously." However:
Soon I began to encounter my preposterous "facts" in the writings of other
men.... The chiropractors and other such quacks collared them for use as
evidence of the stupidity of medical men. They were cited by medical men
as proof of the progress of public hygiene. They got into learned journals
and the transactions of learned societies. They were alluded to on the
floor of Congress. The editorial writers of the land, borrowing them in
toto and without mentioning my begetting of them, began to labor them
in their dull, indignant way. They crossed the dreadful wastes of the
North Atlantic, and were discussed horribly by English uplifters and
German professors. Finally, they got into the standard works of reference,
and began to be taught to the young.
Curtis D. MacDougall, in his 1958 edition of the book Hoaxes gives a
chronology, which he confesses is surely very incomplete, and which I
summarize and update somewhat below:
- December 1917 Mencken's article published in the Evening Mail.
- May 1926 Mencken confesses to the hoax in his column
- June 1926 The Boston Herald, which had printed Mencken's
confession, nonetheless reports as fact the original hoax.
- July 1926 Mencken publishes a second confession.
- October 1926 The article "Bathtubs, Early Americans" in
Scribner's magazine is based on the phony Mencken story.
- December 1926 The Chicago Evening American reports
the hoax as fact: "Bathtub Once Forbidden by Law in America."
- March 1927 Col. W.G. Archer of the National Trade Extension
Bureau of the Plumbing and Heating Industry uses the story in his
address in Clearfield, Pennsylvania.
- July 1927 John Finley, chief editorial writer for the New
York Times tells the story as fact at a meeting of social and
health workers in New York City.
- November 1927 The chiropractic profession circulates the story
in newsletters and op-ed pieces as a way of pointing out the closed-mindedness
of the medical profession.
- February 1929 The American Baptist tells the story in
an article called "The Bathtub Innovation."
- September 1929 The Paris edition of the New York Herald
publishes an article based on the hoax story.
- 1929 The Le Roy Carman Printing Company of Los Angeles prints
a pamphlet by Walt Dennison called "Saga of the Bathtub" that retells
the bogus history.
- May 1930 House Beautiful magazine prints the story as true.
- September 1930 Golden Book is similarly duped.
- October 1930 a press syndicate distributes the details of the
story in a curiosities column.
- November 1930 The book Puritan's Progress, containing
interesting 'facts' about the history of bathing, is published.
- March 1931 The New York Herald Tribune reports: "Baths in
Disfavor for Long Periods, History Recalls."
- December 1931 The Tucson Daily Star reports on the
anniversary of the introduction of the bathtub, using Mencken's story.
The New York Sun reprints a Military Engineer article
about "When Bathtubs Were Luxuries."
- August 1932 Chicago's Domestic Engineering Company retells the
story in a pamphlet called The Story of the Bath, which is
exposed by reporters at the Macon, Georgia Telegraph.
- 1933 Joseph Nathan Kanes book Famous First Facts uses
Mencken's story as the authoritative source of bathtub firsts.
- 1935 The book Rats, Lice and History by Dr. Hans Zinsser,
a Harvard professor of medicine, includes phacts from Mencken's history.
- January 1935 The U.S. Federal Housing Administration publishes
an article - "Bathtub History in U.S. Traced to Days of Benjamin
Franklin" - that includes the Mencken story as fact.
- February 1935 Radio personality Alexander Woollcott says that
in 1841 "the first bathtub had not yet been installed in the White
House."
- August 1935 The New York Times reports that "One of the
first bathrooms appeared in Cincinnati, Ohio, about 1850, and certain
clergymen hearing of it preached that such luxury meant nothing less
than degeneracy."
- September 1936 UPI sends out a story noting that "In the middle
of the nineteenth century the bathtub was classed as a 'curse' to
humanity and measures were taken to discourage its use..."
- October 1935 The Kentucky Department of Health includes the
Mencken story in a bulletin.
- November 1935 R.J. Scott's syndicated column notes that "As late
as 1842 some American cities prohibited the use of bathtubs."
- December 1935 The Digest and Review reviews the phacts.
- January 1936 A speaker addressing the American Institute of
Banking in Chicago notes that "when the first bathtubs were introduced
in America, intellectual Boston passed an ordinance making it unlawful
to bathe in a bathtub except on medical advice."
- March 1936 Liberty publishes a Q&A section, one pair of
which is "In which city of the United States was it against the law to
take a bath in 1845?" "In Boston, Mass. It was then deemed unlawful to
take a bath except when prescribed by a physician."
- May 1936 Dr. Shirley Wynne, former New York City commissioner of
health, uses the story during a radio address.
- July 1936 The Chicago Daily News repeats the bogus tale
in an article entitled "Bathtub Suffered Same Fate in U.S. As Most
Pioneers."
- October 1936 The story is embellished for the article "Some
Historic Lore of the White House" in the United States News.
- January 1937 An Associated Press release gives the bogus story
of the first American bathtub.
- April 1937 The Detroit News prints a syndicated column,
"The Bathtub as a Symbol of Equality," in which the usual phacts are
regurgitated.
- May 1937 Rep. Frank Carlson is quoted in the Kansas City
Star as saying that "President Fillmore installed the first
bathtub in the White House, while Boston still had a law against taking
a bath without medical advice."
- June 1937 The Akron, Ohio Beacon-Journal tells the story
of America's first bathtub.
- 1937 Lyndon Brown uses "the slow acceptance of the bathtub" as
an example in his book Marketing Research and Analysis.
- August 1938 Flora MacFarland spins the familiar yarn in the
Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
- September 1938 The American Weekly tells its readers that
"There's a Lot of History Behind Your Bathtub," but doesn't mention
that most of it is false.
- 1941 Harry Walker Hepner's book Effective Advertising
uses the story as an illustrative anecdote.
- January 1942 An editorial on "Imagineering" in the Chicago
Sunday Times notes that "The anti-imagineer was against bathtubs
when they were invented. He insisted that bathing was unhealthy."
- September 1942 The Baltimore Sun (the very paper Mencken
worked for) reports the phacts in an article entitled "Bathtub's
United States Centennial."
- April 1951 John Hersey reports in The New Yorker that
President Truman would tell the story about Fillmore's bathtub when
he showed visitors around the White House.
- September 1952 President Truman uses the bathtub story during a
speech in Philadelphia.
- April 1954 radio commentator Paul Gibson tells the complete
bogus history in his newscast.
And, more recently...
Curtis MacDougall ends his list by saying: "If the publishers will
include a blank page or two after this one, dear reader, you can continue
this chronology yourself." With that in mind, here are some examples
(send me more if you find them!):
- Grolier Online
reports that Fillmore installed the first White House bathtub.
- The Hall of American Presidents reports that Millard Fillmore "saw the first bathtub and the first library installed in the White House."
- The History of Plumbing in
America from Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine (July 1987)
notes that "In 1835, the Common Council of Philadelphia almost banned
wintertime bathing (the ordinance failed by two votes). Ten years
later, Boston forbade bathing except on specific medical advice."
- The Internet
Public Library's page on Millard Fillmore notes that the White
House's first bathtub was installed by the Fillmores.
- The Firsts by First Ladies page
claims that Abigail Powers Fillmore had the first bathtub installed in
the White House.
- The Historical Facts and Fictions page
lists "Millard Fillmore had the first bathtub installed in the White
House" on the "facts" side.
- The Presidential Falderol page
notes that Fillmore had the first bathtub installed in the White House
(but quickly made a correction after the page was listed here).
- The Internet Public Library
claims that "[t]he White House's first library, bathtub and kitchen
stove were installed by the Fillmores."
- Another American Presidents
page insists that "Fillmore installed the first bathtub and kitchen
stove in the White House."
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