From the Ipswich Tribune
September 7, 1927 edition
BATHING
Somebody ought to start a movement for a brand bath tub centenary in 1942. It will be just 100 years since the first bathtub was installed in America.
Adam Thompson got himself into hot water, literally and figuratively with that tub. Newspapers roasted him. Statesmen complained that he was destroying the democratic simplicity of the republic. Doctors predicted rheumatism and inflammation of the lungs for anybody who used such an unholy contraption. Ministers condemned it is ungodly luxury. Boston made bathing unlawful except upon medical advice. The city council of Philadelphia tried to pass an ordinance prohibiting bathing during the winter months.
Yet the bathtub has won, even though the do say that there are radio sets than bath tubs in America today. If it isn’t true that nearly everybody bathes it is true that nobody brags now about not observing this hygienic rite.
Moreover from bathtubs we have passed to artificial swimming pools outdoors and indoors. There is a regular mania for bathing now. We may carry it to such excess as did the classic nations of antiquity when they built more public bath houses than churches and substituted cleanliness for goodliness.
Reader Comments(0)