Monkey Closets: a History of Public Restrooms [20:16]

Historians don't tend to dwell on the less savory aspects of human existence, but the historical fact is, nature has always called.

The oldest known human excrement ever to have been found is some 50,000 years old. Found in an archaeological dig in Spain, it serves as proof, according to BBC News, that Neanderthals ate vegetables.

And as edifying as that is, it raises an important point. The human need for facilities is nothing new. In fact, there's little that is more universal in the human experience than the need to use the restroom. Through much of the world today, if you're out and about town, you can count on there being a public facility somewhere nearby. But the evolution of public restrooms has occurred over millennia and in sometimes surprising ways, at least to modern sensibilities. Historians don't tend to dwell on the less savory aspects of the human experience, but the fact is that throughout all of human history, nature has called, and the history of public restrooms deserves to be remembered.

Evidence of toilets goes far back into prehistory. Wastewater canals have been identified from around 5,000 BC in the ancient city of Biblo, and Sargon I, who ruled Akad in the 24th century BC, had horseshoe-shaped toilets in his court. Evidence for early flush toilets has been found at the Minos palace in Crete. But all these toilets were built solely for the private use of mostly high-ranking individuals. There were some primitive public toilets in ancient Egypt which used the Nile River to take away waste and in ancient Greece near gymnasiums and public squares. It wasn't until the time of ancient Rome that public toilets were used more widely.

Ancient Rome adopted public toilets on a grander scale. Their latrine-style toilets were constructed as public places and for the Romans were not just places where you did your business, but literally where you could do business as well as gossip or speak politics. Rome's earliest public toilets date back to the 2nd century BC, but they became a major feature of most Roman cities by the 1st century AD. They reached their highest level of decoration and style around the 2nd century. By the 4th century, there were separate latrines for men and women. They fell out of use by the 6th century with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transition to the Middle Ages. While they were often built with funds donated by the wealthy, they were primarily used by poorer Romans and more rarely by women. Building public toilets was seen as a civic duty because it helped keep streets clean and limit the spread of disease. Of course, the sharing of the communal sponges on a stick, along with the less than effective cleaning, meant that public toilets could be centers for spreading disease.

The Romans are sometimes credited with the first pay toilets as well. Nero imposed a tax on the disposing of urine, and Vespasian enacted a tax on collecting urine for use in tanning, wool production, and laundry. When his son complained that the tax was disgusting, Vespasian has been credited with the phrase "pecunia non olet," or "the money does not stink." Vespasian became so associated with public urinals that in Italy and France, public toilets are still referred to with his name. Public toilets on that scale disappeared with the fall of Rome. Some places continued to use the old Roman plumbing, and some businesses may have had a chamber pot or, more rarely, a garderobe for public use. But the most common public toilet from the 5th to 10th century in Europe was the side of the road. Forts and monasteries had bathrooms for their inhabitants, though they often emptied merely onto the ground or a nearby river.

Things began to change around 1000 AD. Growing urban populations began to make the need for sanitation more pressing, underlined by the spread of plague and other diseases. In medieval England, these public latrines were often called "siege houses." The word "siege" has an etymology from Middle English and Latin meaning "seat" and could refer to a military siege or an outhouse. As Carol Rockcliffe explains in her book, Urban Bodies: Communal Health and Late Medieval English Towns and Cities, medieval cities were more interested in cleanliness than we might expect. In 1307, one of the king's grooms was accosted as he was relieving himself beside a road by two Londoners who told him that it would be more decent to go to the common privies of the city. While it wasn't uncommon, especially for the poor, to go wherever, it was quickly becoming socially unacceptable. A beggar child killed by a cart in 1339 while he was squatting was described in the record as little more than a savage. In 1301, York passed a law that public privies had to be established in all wards of the city. Empress Matilda, wife of Henry I, established one of the earliest public privies in London in the late 11th century. A handful of other facilities seem to have existed elsewhere, such as in Frankfurt in 1348 and Basel in 1455.

The communal conditions in medieval cities posed serious problems for sanitation. But Ernst Sbine, in a 1934 assessment of medieval London, wrote that Londoners deserved wholehearted praise and respect for their efforts to provide toilet facilities to the public. He estimates conservatively that by the 15th century, there were a dozen public bathrooms in the busiest parts of London, and some were quite large. Richard Whittington's long house had two rows of toilets, one for men and one for women. Bequeathing money to build these kinds of houses of easement was actually quite common. Some were significant buildings with stone-lined cesspits, but at its most simple, simply a box over or near running water, like a river, was sufficient. It was not uncommon for medieval city dwellers to use chamber pots and then dump them out of a window, but records show that there was a determined effort to end it. Coventry imposed large fines on improper private facilities, while Cambridge accused several scholars of having sedges or privies overhanging the common river. Overflowing latrines could land a person in court, and the workers who emptied latrines were paid high fees to do the disagreeable job.

A Mughal emperor in India is said to have built public toilets in the city of Alwar in 1556. The Seljuk Turks were driven by the Islamic emphasis on cleanliness to construct public bathrooms without seats but with holes where users could squat. More common outside of Europe. By 1530, one was established outside of a mosque in Ottoman Sarvo that remains in use. In Istanbul, the Roman toilets built by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century continued to see use into the Ottoman period 800 years later. Colonial America had at least a small number of public outhouses in cities like Philadelphia, where one has been found a stone's throw from Independence Hall.

According to sociologist Darra Blumenthal, changing habits, attitudes, and practices surrounding hygiene began to shift in the 16th century, eventually leading to the reemergence of public toilets. That is evidenced by manners books such as Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo, or a treatise on politeness and delicacy of manners, which state that it does not befit modest honorable men to prepare to relieve nature in the presence of other people. He also mentions that it would be rude to wash your hands after since the reason for its washing will arouse disagreeable thoughts. This behavior had less to do with sanitation than it did with the development of genteel standards. Paradoxically, as bathroom habits became more standard, they were mentioned less in manners books, becoming an unspoken but well-understood code of conduct.

It wasn't until the 19th century that public relief stations began to appear in Paris. In 1830, the French government established some of the first pissoirs, standing urinals made of masonry and cast iron. They were in the street or the side of a building. In 1830, however, was an unfortunate year for their establishment. The July Revolution, which overthrew the House of Bourbon in favor of a constitutional monarchy, began in July, and the few that were installed were dismantled to make barricades. Paris had a particular reputation for smell and poor sanitation in the 18th century, when most residents still used chamber pots. In 1843, 400 cylindrical urinals were built throughout Paris by Claude Filibert Bartolo, the Count of Rambouillet. They were open on one side, allowing visitors some privacy, and became known as the Rambouillet columns. But Rambouillet suggested Vespasians after Emperor Vespasian. And they weren't just for relieving oneself. Paris public loos were used by resistance members in World War II to pass messages.

Similar cast iron urinals were developed in the United Kingdom, first erected in Glasgow in October 1850. Two years later, almost 50 had been installed. The Scottish versions had iron screens that hid the body, offering more privacy. These urinals were exported through the UK and beyond to places like Australia and Argentina. Paris's sanitation benefited greatly under Napoleon III when Baron Eugene Haussmann demolished and remodeled large parts of the city. He introduced cast iron urinals with versions housing two to as many as eight stalls. These typically screened the middle section but left the feet and head exposed. At their peak in the 1830s, some 1,230 of the urinals were installed throughout Paris. These urinals were universally only for men. Building a version for women doesn't seem to have even been seriously considered.

The 19th century saw the adoption of this kind of station throughout Europe. Wooden ones appeared in Berlin in 1865, culminating in the octagon café with seven stalls. Vienna installed smaller octagonal versions that used a unique oil system to neutralize odors. In the 1870s, pea curls were installed in Amsterdam. In the 1880s, itinerant horse-drawn wagons with water closets were known in Paris, who sold access while they cruised through main thoroughfares. In 1829, the Tremont Hotel in Boston installed shared toilet facilities. In the US, ground floor and basement facilities were common, but they were generally privately owned.

A big moment for public toilets came in England in 1851 at the Crystal Palace exhibition in London. Calls for better sanitation were already common from such luminaries as Charles Dickens. George Jennings, a sanitary engineer and plumber, took the opportunity to present his improvements on the water closet and flushing toilet. Dubbed "monkey closets," he installed them in the retiring rooms of the Crystal Palace, making them the first public flush toilets. They were also pay toilets at a penny a piece. Over 827,000 exposition-goers went in the facilities made of earthenware with a curved pipe beneath topped with a mahogany seat and privacy walls. The use of his toilets for a penny helped inspire an English euphemism for using the toilet: to "spend a penny." When the fair ended, Jennings convinced organizers to leave the toilets open, and they continued to earn over £1,000 a year. John Neville Mascolene, a magician and inventor, invented the first pay toilet lock, which was first installed in 1892 and cost a penny to operate.

The monkey closet sparked the beginning of modern public bathrooms. The Society of Arts and Jennings installed the first in 1852 in central London in an effort to prove that they could be profitable. However, it failed. Sanitation concerns continued to grow, and in the latter half of the 19th century, the first underground public toilets were built in London, some designed by Jennings himself, accessible by stairs lined with wrought iron fences and lit with glass brick on the ceilings. While men's and women's toilets existed, they were still primarily for men, leading to the establishment of the Ladies Sanitary Association, which campaigned for more public conveniences for women and fought against popular sentiments that women had more self-control and could hold it. Dr. Stevenson, the medical officer of Health for Paddington, even had to say that women have the same physical necessities as men. And the call for female toilets was no imaginary want created by sentimentalism.

The first underground comfort stations in Paris were built near the church La Lène. A lavishly decorated public toilet opened in 1905. In the United States, the first public flushable toilets were built in 1869 on Aster Place, New York City. While it had both men and women sections, the women's section was little used, and the toilets in general were not kept clean. It was torn down in 1872.

Public toilets, really more outhouses, were common near crossroads in the old Northwest Territory in the 19th century, although they were generally of modest construction. In 1893, the Chicago World's Fair had 3,000 temporary public pay toilets, mostly installed by the Clo Sanitary Company. In 1897, a New York City mayor sent representatives to Europe to see London and Paris comfort stations. They reported favorably on the underground stations in London, but poorly on the Paris street journals. The US saw its share of calls for public bathrooms thanks to the ubiquity of public urination. In 1865, a report by the New York Physicians called for public urinals. A handful of public urinals were built or authorized in places like Providence, Rhode Island, and Cincinnati, while Boston had 15 public urinals by 1873. Boston built more elaborate facilities throughout the next decade, operating 22 by 1880. They were universally poorly viewed and maintained. Businesses feared that they would drive away customers. And one in New York was described in 1883 as a place that reeks with filth and upon whose walls are written the vilest obscenities.

In the United States, the primary way people used public restrooms in the mid to late 19th century was in saloons and stores. In 1913, one alcoholic in Chicago complained that he had given up sobriety because the city failed to provide toilet facilities for its citizens. Theodore Roosevelt, as police commissioner for New York City, complained he couldn't reprimand officers who entered saloons because they had a legitimate reason. Saloon keepers saw their public restrooms as effective as free lunches in attracting customers. Department stores, hotels, and railroad stations might also have had facilities, but they also kept out poor parts of society. The toilets that appeared in the 1893 World's Fair were a mixed lot. About a third were bare bones and entirely free to use, while the remainder were pay toilets and included soap, towels, brushes, and personal attendants. Some reports complained that closed sanitation levied tribute on the necessities of nature. It was the beginning, however, of a pay toilet renaissance built on the system in the UK. By 1896, London had 16 such underground stations. New York City built its first underground public bathroom in 1897. According to the article, "It's a privilege to pee," the first coin lock paid toilet in the US is believed to have been installed at the railroad station in Teroot, Indiana, to prevent non-ticket holders from using the new indoor plumbing. In 1911, a railroad in Chicago boasted both free and pay toilets for men. Pushes by women's groups, sanitation advocates, and prohibitionists led to a boom in public restrooms in the progressive era, dubbed comfort stations, often underground and in parks and plazas. While they were usually free facilities, they also came with more upscale pay toilets meant to offset upkeep costs or raise funds for the city. Similar stations in small towns were called restrooms, but were more comprehensive. In addition to toilets, they had parlors, dining rooms, and even kitchens. Cities still struggled with the cost of maintaining such facilities and often failed to. They also attracted criminals and, just as frightening to many of the time, homosexual activities. Public bathrooms and private businesses were still more popular. By 1919, 100 cities were operating comfort stations. Prohibition, which closed the saloon bathrooms as well as the saloons, made the need greater.

The 1930s and the Great Depression were the death knell for many municipal public bathrooms in the US. The 1930s did see, however, the construction of over 2.3 million sanitary outhouses, often called Roosevelt outhouses, the White House or the Eleanor. Similar outhouses were built on private property for poor families in an effort to improve sanitation and disease. More modern versions were installed in state and national parks by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It wasn't until after World War II and the 1956 passage of the Federal Highways Act that public safety rest areas would appear. They were installed as part of the interstate system and considered necessary for the safety and convenience of the motoring public. Lyndon Johnson's Highway Beautification Act of 1965 also saw the construction of many rest areas. Most public toilets in the US remained in business, and many were pay toilets. In 1973, the Wall Street Journal estimated there were 50,000 pay toilets in the United States. California saw the earliest legislative attempts to change that. In 1955, Assemblyman Charles Meyers introduced a bill requiring businesses with pay toilets to have a free one. March Fun O, an assemblywoman, argued that the toilets were discriminatory because urinals were free, but women always had to pay a dime to use a stall. She made headlines when she smashed a toilet on the steps of the state capital building. In 1970, the city council of Los Angeles banned pay toilets in city-owned buildings. She finally passed a bill banning pay toilets in 1974 despite resistance from Nicolak, which manufactured toilet locks. Chicago eliminated pay toilets in Chicago's airports as part of the women's liberation movement. In the 70s, 24 other states proposed pay toilet bills. Those who argued against pay toilets generally argued that they were an infringement on the basic human right and discriminated against women and the poor. In 1975, Michigan became the first state to ban pay toilets in a private space, banning them in bars or restaurants licensed to sell alcohol.

The 1960s and 70s, famous for their grassroots activism, saw significant agitation against pay toilets. Numerous groups formed like Flush, Free Latrines Unlimited for Suffering Humanity in Idaho, and AP against pay toilets. They encouraged putting tape on bathroom locks to prevent them from latching. But the most important group by far was Septia, the committee to end pay toilets in America. Formed by four high school and college students in Ohio in 1970, the committee used humor to press their cause, creating an anthem with the lyrics, "We'll flush them out. We'll wipe them out. We pledge to Septia," and awarded an annual Thomas Crapper Award. They discouraged violence or vandalism and for several years in the 1970s made headlines. They disbanded in 1976, claiming they had closed half of the pay toilets in America. While Nicolak disagreed that many had closed, laws were passed around the country closing pay toilets. Automated self-cleaning toilets are growing more common. The informal name for them in London is super loo. One question that Europeans frequently ask is why do American toilet seats have such large gaps between the walls and the floor? Some blame Frank Lloyd Wright, who claimed to have invented ceiling-hung toilet partitions in 1904 for the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York. But his claim is disputed. The primary reasons given today are for ease of cleaning, better ventilation, safety, and even ADA compliance. Cost might also be a factor. The uproar over pay toilets faded in the 1970s, but so did pay toilets in the US today. They're few and far between, but some have argued that the demise of paid toilets has resulted in fewer and harder to find public toilets. An ironic result. Public toilets are in all corners of the world. China underwent a major program to build public toilets, building 69,000 toilets between 2015 and 2017, although those are mostly squat-type toilets. And cities like Berlin and London have undergone recent efforts to make public toilets more available. According to the British research firm QS Supplies, the US only has eight public toilets per 100,000 people, putting us on par with Botswana. There's an outcry for more public toilets, but cost and crime are persistent issues. Recent experiences show that the installation of a new self-cleaning type public toilet can cost the city hundreds of thousands up to a million dollars. And even the future doesn't seem to have good answers, as Trekkies have long noticed, toilets are notably absent on Star Trek franchise starships. So, it appears the question of where to go when nature calls will continue to vex humanity.

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