America's First Toilet Paper Shortage
The Great Toilet Paper ShortageThere have been shortages of many things throughout history - oil, rubber, coffee, medicine, and so on. Yet, one of the most interesting shortages - the shortage of toilet paper - was one that should never have occurred.
Before telling this unusual story, let's first take a quick look at the history of toilet paper.
Obviously, toilet paper has not been around forever. We can be pretty sure that the caveman did not stop at his local Mega-superstore to pick up a case pack of Charmin. In fact, Since humans are the only animals that have the dexterity to actually wipe themselves after each defecation, it is currently believed that the original material used for cleaning (to put it politely) was leaves and sticks.
The material of choice among colonial America was corn cobs. When daily newspapers became commonplace in the 1700's, paper became the material of choice (I guess that one could say that Gutenberg's printing press caused the toilet paper revolution). Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) wrote in a letter to his son that one should always carry with them a cheap copy of the Latin poets so that he would have something educational to read while on the pot, as well as having a good use for each page after reading it (This is not a quote, just a story). This lead to a major problem in England - the landscape was littered with paper - they didn't have modern sewers to take the stuff away from our sight.
In the late 19th century, the Sears catalog became popular in rural America. People simply hung it up on a nail and had a free supply of 100's of pages of absorbent, uncoated paper. Corn cobs were still holding as a strong second place contender, however. Use of the Sears catalog declined in the 1930's due to the fact that they started printing on glossy, clay-coated paper. Many people complained to Sears about this glossy paper (Can you imagine writing a letter to Sears: Dear Sir, I want to register a complaint about your new glossy catalog paper. It is no longer soft and absorbent...).
The first actual paper produced for wiping was in England in 1880. They were individual squares sold in boxes, not rolls. This paper was very coarse - the type the British prefer today. Americans like the soft, fluffy type, which was introduced in 1907. The original American product was sort of like crepe paper, if you remember that stuff from kindergarten.
Before telling this unusual story, let's first take a quick look at the history of toilet paper.
Obviously, toilet paper has not been around forever. We can be pretty sure that the caveman did not stop at his local Mega-superstore to pick up a case pack of Charmin. In fact, Since humans are the only animals that have the dexterity to actually wipe themselves after each defecation, it is currently believed that the original material used for cleaning (to put it politely) was leaves and sticks.
The material of choice among colonial America was corn cobs. When daily newspapers became commonplace in the 1700's, paper became the material of choice (I guess that one could say that Gutenberg's printing press caused the toilet paper revolution). Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) wrote in a letter to his son that one should always carry with them a cheap copy of the Latin poets so that he would have something educational to read while on the pot, as well as having a good use for each page after reading it (This is not a quote, just a story). This lead to a major problem in England - the landscape was littered with paper - they didn't have modern sewers to take the stuff away from our sight.
In the late 19th century, the Sears catalog became popular in rural America. People simply hung it up on a nail and had a free supply of 100's of pages of absorbent, uncoated paper. Corn cobs were still holding as a strong second place contender, however. Use of the Sears catalog declined in the 1930's due to the fact that they started printing on glossy, clay-coated paper. Many people complained to Sears about this glossy paper (Can you imagine writing a letter to Sears: Dear Sir, I want to register a complaint about your new glossy catalog paper. It is no longer soft and absorbent...).
The first actual paper produced for wiping was in England in 1880. They were individual squares sold in boxes, not rolls. This paper was very coarse - the type the British prefer today. Americans like the soft, fluffy type, which was introduced in 1907. The original American product was sort of like crepe paper, if you remember that stuff from kindergarten.
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