Portable Bathtubs: Tub Bathing from the Early 19th and 20th Centuries

Bathing, from the early 19th to the early 20th centuries, required stamina and fortitude. Without indoor plumbing, bathing involved filling small portable tubs with water, bucket by bucket. This, as well as different attitudes about cleanliness, meant that few people fully immersed themselves in water.

With daily bathing becoming more accepted by the 1880s, many attempted to develop innovative ways to heat bath water and to incorporate the portable bathtub within a room setting. The Mosely Folding Bath Company advertised a folding bath in the 1895 Montgomery Ward Catalog.
Description
With daily bathing becoming more accepted by the 1880s, many attempted to develop innovative ways to heat bath water and to incorporate the portable bathtub within a room setting. The Mosely Folding Bath Company advertised a folding bath in the 1895 Montgomery Ward Catalog. This tub, disguised as a mirrored wardrobe, folded down and out of its wood casing into the room, revealing the heater above.
This was similar to Bruschke & Ricke’s combined sofa and bathtub of the same period. The sofa’s bolster concealed a water tank and heater, while the seat unfolded to reveal a bathtub. Often, large rubber aprons protected the wood or carpeted floor. Accounts of igniting sofas and burned bathers dampened the product’s appeal. Since neither bathtub attached to plumbing nor pipes, used bath water drained into a basin and then required emptying.
For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
date made
1880-1900
manufacturer
Mosely Folding Bath Co.
ID Number
1977.1217.13
catalog number
1977.1217.13
accession number
1977.1217
The tub takes its name from its form in the shape of a hat. The patient sat either on the bath’s ledge or on a chair outside the tub with his or her feet and legs in the center of the basin.
Description
The tub takes its name from its form in the shape of a hat. The patient sat either on the bath’s ledge or on a chair outside the tub with his or her feet and legs in the center of the basin. The Dover Stamping Company, a tinware firm in Boston, Massachusetts, listed this form as such in their 1869 catalog. The spout for emptying the bath water is beneath the ledge.
We know of Nathaniel Waterman, the tub’s maker, through his membership in the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association and his listings in the Boston City Directories at 85 Cornhill Street from 1842 to 1846. He learned the tinsmith trade at a young age and his firm, the Waterman Kitchen and House Furnishing Wareroom, existed in Boston for over forty years. According to accounts, his store was a “veritable museum of all conceivable household necessities and conveniences.”*
For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
*Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Annals of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, 1795–1892. (Boston: Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 1892): p. 100.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1840 - 1846
maker
Waterman, Nathaniel
ID Number
DL.68.0724
catalog number
68.0724
accession number
275377
Nineteenth–century bathtubs were viewed as furniture rather than fixtures. As such, tin tubs were often decorated with painted stripes and swags or marbleized to imitate wood.
Description
Nineteenth–century bathtubs were viewed as furniture rather than fixtures. As such, tin tubs were often decorated with painted stripes and swags or marbleized to imitate wood. This tub, with its multicolored stripes around the top edge and its painted wood stand, would fit appropriately among the other "fancy" household furniture of the period. This tub likely was used in a dressing room or bedroom.
For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1830 - 1850
maker
unknown
ID Number
DL.68.0723
catalog number
68.0723
accession number
275377
By the early 20th century, many in cities and towns lived in homes with bathrooms. Consumers now viewed tubs as plumbing fixtures rather than furniture, along with sinks and toilets.
Description
By the early 20th century, many in cities and towns lived in homes with bathrooms. Consumers now viewed tubs as plumbing fixtures rather than furniture, along with sinks and toilets. In providing recommendations for fixtures in this new room, advice manuals and sanitary specialists preached against the heavy, free standing tubs behind which dust and dirt could collect.
Bathtub manufacturers began to market built–in porcelain tubs, which they claimed were more durable and more easily cleaned than those of metal or iron enamel. Soon porcelain tubs came in various colors, “lend(ing) themselves to the most refined artistic and delicate (bath) decorations.”* The Trenton Potteries Company, maker of this sample, was one of the larger manufacturers of porcelain tubs in the United States.
Many bathers, now accommodated by indoor plumbing and hot water, took to the tub for pleasure and relaxation, as well as to get clean. Ivory Soap advertisements emphasized this: “Ah—my Ivory bath—it’s a pleasure—pure pleasure.”** The bathtub became the center of the cleanliness ritual. The bathroom was on its way to becoming one of the featured and larger areas of the home in the later 20th and 21st centuries.
For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th century, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
*Archibald M. Maddock, II, The Polished Earth: A History of the Pottery Plumbing Fixture Industry in the United States, (Trenton, NJ, 1962), 275.
**Ivory Soap ad, 1953
Location
Currently not on view
date made
early 20th century
1900-1920
manufacturer
Trenton Potteries Company
ID Number
1980.0823.01
accession number
1980.0823
catalog number
1980.0823.01

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