All the Modern Conveniences

A study that explores the development of household plumbing in 19th-century America. Ogle draws on a wide assortment of contemporary sources such as sanitation reports, builders' manuals, fixture catalogues, patent applications and popular scientific tracts.

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Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in mansions and first-class hotels. Then, in the decade before mid-century, Americans representing a wider range of economic circumstances began to install household plumbing with increasing eagerness. Ogle draws on a wide assortment of contemporary sources - sanitation reports, builders' manuals, fixture catalogues, patent applications and popular scientific tracts - to show how the demand for plumbing was more by an emerging middle-class culture of convenience, reform and domestic life than by fears abour poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation. She also examines advancements in water-supply and waste-management technology, the architectural considerations these amenities entailed and the scientific approach to sanitation that began to emerge by century's end.