History of Toilet Tissue Paper

Just in case you are not happy to live in the twentieth century and take for granted the simple amenities we enjoy in everyday life, like for example, general grooming items like soap, toothpaste and toilet tissue paper. How would you manage without them? Did you ever wonder, for instance, who invented toilet paper and what was used before its invention? We can go back in history to the ancient Greeks, for instance, whose idea of using stones or pieces of clay was a bit rougher than the Romans, who used sponges on the ends of sticks that were kept in jugs filled with salty water. Mid Easterners commonly used the left hand, which is supposedly still considered unclean in the Arabian region.

But who first thought about using paper for personal hygiene? If we could travel back in time to 1391, we would encounter a Chinese emperor who demanded the first paper sheets sliced to be placed in his outhouse. The first "official" toilet paper was introduced in China measuring a whopping 2 ft X 3 ft each.

In early American years, one common alternative happened to be... corncobs. If you lived in early rural America, you would find a corncob hanging from a string in the outhouse for purposes of personal hygiene. The string, as it turns out, was to permit the cob to be reused. While in coastal regions, the cob might be replaced by a mussel shell, the preferred method became plant leaves and magazines. In fact, Sears received significant complaints when they switched to color coated shiny paper.

As history would have it, an important move towards the production and distribution of modern toilet tissue paper came from a teacher in Philadelphia in 1907. Concerned about a mild cold epidemic in her classroom, she blamed it on the fact that all students used the same cloth towel. A very smart, ahead of her time teacher proceeded to cut up paper into squares to be used by her class as individual towels, a revolutionary idea.

Who invented the "modern" type of toilet paper? In 1871, the first U.S. Patent for perforated paper was awarded to Seth Wheeler of Albany, becoming the official "inventor" of toilet paper. Unable to make a go with the production of a thin tissue toilet paper, the assembly eventually was mastered by the Scott brothers, who founded the Scott Paper company in Philadelphia.

During the Victorian Era, when only proper etiquette was accepted, it was unmentionable to talk about any "toilet paper or rolls of tissue" product in society. When a desire for better hygiene flourished and improvements to indoor plumbing came about, the first significant use of toilet paper began to develop. Today, the average American uses 57 sheets of toilet paper a day or more than 20,805 sheets a year, making it a $ 2.4 billion dollar industry.

More fascinating than the history of toilet paper was the clever ways invented to hide the tissue toilet roll. Since the Victorian Era called for concealing "unpleasant" products like toilet tissue paper, a great selection of distinctive Tissue Toilet Roll holders or covers were found. One such holder was called "Madam's Double Utility Lace Fan". This witty item had a hidden compartment in the handle with 150 sheets of toilet paper cut to conform to the shape of the fan.

Although today's toilet paper and its use are natural parts of life, using roll covers to delicately conceal toilet tissue paper rolls has developed into a hot trend in decorating.