WWWest-Online Development Blog

One of the projects on which I’m currently working is creating a timeline. The purpose of this timeline is to gather and organize historical information about the era. It includes all kind of events: wars, battles, inventions, publications, developments and more.

Not all the events that the timeline includes so far were known to me, and some of them actually surprised me quite a bit. While I was searching I surprised to find out that1857 marked the production of the first batch of toilet paper (a rudimentary form of the fluffy goodness we know today), by Joseph Gayetty of the United States. He used unbleached, pearl-colored manila hemp paper. This came as a surprise because I’d previously thought that toilet paper had been made many many years before 1857. I know that it’s something that we have had in the last centuries but I didn’t think it was made in the 19th century – “only” 151 years ago.

I also knew that in the early days people didn’t have toilet paper. They used all kinds of materials; leaves, wool and fabric to name a few. I decided to learn more about the history of toilet paper and started to research it. None of the encyclopedias in which I looked had an entry for “toilet paper” so I started searching the internet.

In the course of my research I discovered that the first toilet paper to be produced was for the use of the Emperor of China in 1391, and though it wasn’t exactly “toilet paper” as we know it today, it was a kind of paper made for the same purpose.  From 1391 China we jump to 1857 USA, when Joseph Gayetty first made packaged toilet paper (and also sold it). 1880 (more or less) marked the “rise” of rolled toilet paper – you know, the kind you keep in your bathrooms. Only rougher – them fancy soft rolls ain’t fit for a Western man’s behind. In 1888 the phrase “toilet paper” first appears in the New York Times.

One last bit of trivia: In the late Victorian era toilet paper was considered an “unmentionable” product so people were at first reluctant to buy it. But as we all know they eventually got over it .

Stego