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.
"As part of this well-researched study, Maureen Ogle links
cities, politicians, systems, sanitarians, and ideas to produce a
compelling account of household plumbing -- a taken-for-granted set
of devices that allowed Americans to express their individualism
and their commitment to 'science.'" -- Mark H. Rose, Florida
Atlantic University
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