The invention and improvements that led to the modern roll of toilet paper
If you’re old enough to read these words, you’re probably at a stage in your life where you can take things like toilet paper for granted. Using your annual quota of 50 pounds of toilet paper per year may feel easy, but like any tool, it’s something you had to be taught to use and understand (as my four-year-old is now acutely aware of.) Beyond our acclimation to wiping ourselves with paper products, there’s been technological innovation in toilet paper as well, starting with the invention of paper itself.
Early years of paper hygiene products
Just a few hundred years after paper was invented in China, their revolutionary material for writing found its way into someone’s toilet. In 589 AD, the first account of using paper for personal hygiene was documented in Korea. By 1391, paper was being produced in China for the express purpose of wiping one’s rear. That paper came in awkwardly large sheets, around two- by three-feet overall, but at least had some perfume in it to make the experience more pleasant. It wasn’t an immediate world-wide hit though, partially because these tissues were intended for the emperor’s family only. Paper was still too precious for most people to dispose of after a single use.
This early start certainly didn’t put toilet paper, scented or unscented, into everyone’s bathroom. For many parts of the world, paper was scarce enough that it wasn’t even being used in books, much less in toilets. Instead, many folks made (or continue to make) due with a variety of options that many of us wouldn’t really associate with wiping. Throughout history, the list of bathroom tissue alternatives has included stones, sponges, clay, moss, shells, sticks, hands and corncobs.
Building a better toilet tissue
By the 17th century, paper products started making their way into the bathroom in the western world, but only after it arrived in the mailbox. Newspapers and magazines were repurposed as toilet paper in the American colonies, since paper was finally cheap enough to be disposable. Dedicated toilet paper was made available in 1857 by a one Joseph Gayetty, but it faced stiff competition in the form of the Sears Roebuck catalog. The latter was mailed out for free, and came with a hole punched in the corner, making it convenient to hang in one’s outhouse. This interest in convenience may have informed the next big innovations toilet paper technology, as in 1871 Seth Wheeler started selling perforated sheets in a role rather than a tissue-style box.
That doesn’t mean the story of toilet paper was settled in 1871 though. It wasn’t until 1935 that Northern Tissue offered “splinter free” paper with a process called linenizing, reminding us of how much bravery a trip to the lavatory once required. Two-ply tissue arrived in 1942, and colored paper was available in 1954. As important as all these improvements were, toilet paper’s place in public awareness was also being updated in this time period, since at one point the whole concept of wiping one’s self was deemed too inappropriate to even bring up, much less purchase in a public setting.
Selling toilet paper to an uncomfortable public
While Joseph Gayetty was proud enough of his medicated tissues to put his name on every one, other manufacturers were a bit more hesitant to brag about their products. Thomas Seymour, Edward Irvin and Clarence Wood Scott started producing rolled toilet paper, but sold it directly to hotels and drugstores, putting their clients’ names on them instead of their own. The Scott Paper Company didn’t really acknowledge their toilet paper production until 1896, over a decade after they started selling it. At the end of the 19th century, homes started being built with indoor plumbing, meaning older methods for hygiene, like corncobs, weren’t acceptable anymore. This gave toilet paper an opening in public discourse, since the product could be advertised for how well it broke apart in plumbing, avoiding too much detail about what it did directly for consumers themselves.
The final innovation on this front came from the Hoberg Paper Company in 1928. The company started selling their toilet tissues in “ladylike” packaging, since bragging about softness and feminine qualities would be easier than getting into the specifics of cleaning one’s nether-regions. When coupled with paper sold in four-packs, the branding was enormously successful, helping keep Charmin afloat through the Great Depression and beyond. They’ve had a number of major advertising campaigns since, but they’ve all been based around notions of soft, tactile enjoyment without getting too specific about where you’re supposed to actually feel that softness. Even though toilet paper use is growing worldwide, it’s still not something most of us (over age four) want to discuss in great detail.
Source: Who Invented Toilet Paper?, Toilet Paper History
