How was toilet paper invented?

Ew! Aah! Gross! Get ready for the stinkiest, silliest history lesson EVER! Before soft, fluffy toilet paper, what did people use? Think old leaves, bumpy corn cobs, and even sharp seashells! Yikes! Join Mira and Finn as they travel back to 600 AD China, where paper was first used for wiping—wow! Then, find out how an inventor named Joseph Gayetty sold the very FIRST modern toilet paper in America in 1857! Did you know old Sears catalogs sometimes ended up hanging in outhouses? Discover the hilarious and surprisingly splintery journey to today's bathroom routine! Don't miss this totally fascinating (and slightly funny) look at a topic you use every single day!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Histories Not Boring by kidopoly.com. I'm Mira! And I'm Finn! And this episode is a special request from Jax, who is eight and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He listens every night to go to sleep and wanted to know: did people really use leaves as toilet paper? Jax, that is an absolutely brilliant question. And the answer is Yes they did!

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Whoa! Leaves? That sounds super scratchy! We are diving into the history of what people used before soft, fluffy, rolled-up paper, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Exactly, Finn. We're going way, way back to the year 600 AD, when the Chinese first use paper for this job. And we'll look at the even weirder things people use before that. Get ready for the gross and hilarious history of bathroom hygiene.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Haha, gross and hilarious. I bet there are some crazy stories about pointy things.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Oh, you have no idea. But first, let's start with the moment paper was first officially used for wiping. Okay, picture China. Way back in 600 AD. That was during the Tang Dynasty, a huge time for inventions. We know from a scholar named Yan Zhitui that the rich people started using paper to clean up. But they had a big rule. They only used paper that hadn't been used for writing down official stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Wait, 600 AD? That's almost 1,400 years ago. So the Emperor and the rich people had paper. But what about everyone else? Like the farmers? Great point!

SPEAKER_01 1:44

For most people, paper was too expensive or hard to get. So they used what was around. In ancient Greece and Rome, people often used a sponge on a stick called a tessorius, sometimes kept in a bucket of salty water to share. Shared.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

A shared sponge? Ew! That's why I asked about the leaves, Jax. Did people in the Americas use leaves? Like Jax wondered? They absolutely did.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Different leaves for different climates. In cooler places, they might use soft moss, but in hotter places, like parts of ancient America, people use things like corn cobs, those dry, bumpy things the kernels grow on. Imagine that texture.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

A corn cob. That sounds like a defence weapon, not something you want near you. Were there any hard things people used? Like rocks or something?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yes, some coastal people use seashells, and in colder spots, people use stones or even snow. We're talking about a time before mass production, so people got very creative based on their surroundings. The first truly dedicated paper came much later, around the 14th century in China again, made specifically for the Imperial Court. Maybe 700,000 sheets a year. Fast forward nearly a thousand years to America! It's the mid-1800s, and people are still using whatever they can grab. We're talking about leaves, straw, grass, and even torn-up pieces of old newspapers.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Newspapers? But didn't they use ink back then? I bet that ink wasn't safe to touch. Where did the first modern toilet paper come from?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

That brings us to a man named Joseph Gaetti. In 1857 in New York City, he finally said, enough is enough. He invented the first commercially sold toilet paper in America.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

It wasn't rolled up like ours though. 1857? That's forever ago. What did his special paper look like? Was it the super soft stuff? Not at all.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

It was flat sheets, packaged in boxes. And here's the cool part. Each sheet was infused with aloe. Gaetti marketed it as medicated paper to help with skin comfort. He sold a box of 500 sheets for 50 cents, which was a lot of money back then.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

50 cents for a box of paper? That's like what? A gallon of milk today? So if it was medicated, I guess people really needed it to be soft.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I know, but it took a long time for people to switch from using leaves or catalogues to buying special paper. The next big thing, Finn, was in the outhouse itself. Did you know that for a long time people use pages torn out of the Sears Robuck Co. catalogue?

unknown 4:44

Hahaha!

SPEAKER_00 4:45

The Sears catalogue. That's huge. It was like a giant book. Think of the stories you couldn't read. How long was that catalogue? Could it cover the whole floor?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

They were massive. By 1895, a single catalogue could be over 1,300 pages thick. That's enough pages to wallpaper a very small room. People used that until the early 1900s, when actual rolls started catching on. But even when rolls started appearing, there was a huge problem for many people. Remember those early papers, or even the catalogue pages? They were often made from rough wood pulp.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Oh no, rough wood pulp? That sounds like sandpaper. Did that cause a lot of problems for people who had to use it every day?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

It caused itching and discomfort. It was a real issue. People were often left with tiny, painful bits of wood fibre left behind. Can you imagine the feeling of having tiny splinters all the time?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yikes! I would rather go find a soft leaf in the forest. So, when did someone finally invent splinter-free toilet paper?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Thank goodness, that amazing invention came in 1930. That's when the Northern Tissue Company started advertising splinter-free toilet tissue. It was a huge deal and made people finally switch to the roles they saw advertised.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

1930? That's only about 96 years ago. So for centuries, people were dealing with scratchy stuff or sponges. And then they had to worry about splinters until the 1930s. That shows how much work goes into making simple things. Totally!

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Another company, the Charmin Brand, started heavily advertising their two-ply, softer paper in the 1940s, which is the soft stuff we know today. It took centuries for humanity to get from a corn cob to two-ply luxury.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Wait, two-ply means two layers, right? Did people try to make paper thicker before that, like taping two pieces together?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Some did, but it was just simpler to use one sheet of thicker, rougher paper. The two-ply innovation in the mid-20th century was about making it soft and strong enough without being prickly. It's amazing that something so necessary took so long to perfect. The impact of Gaiety's invention and the later invention of soft, splinter-free rolls, was huge. Before rolls, people had to store their cleaning material, moss, rags, or paper, in the outhouse, sometimes in a wooden box. Rolls made things cleaner, easier, and more hygienic, especially as cities grew really big.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

It makes sense. If lots of people share one outhouse, you need something clearly separated. So what about the really funny facts, Mira? Give me a whoa about this topic.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Okay, here's a big one. In the 1950s, when toilet paper really took off in popularity, one major reason people complained about it was that it didn't absorb enough. They were used to rougher materials that were thick. It took marketing to convince them that soft was better than thick.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

People complaining that the new soft stuff wasn't absorbent enough. That's hilarious. So they were used to the rough stuff, working like a really tough scrub brush. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

And one last ancient fact.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Wow, they were so tough. From sponges and seashells to aloe paper and then soft rolls. That's a long journey for something we use every single day without thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

It truly is. History is hiding in the strangest, most everyday things. Now, Jax and everyone else, are you ready for a pop quiz on what we learned? Alright, Finn, quiz time! We've got five questions to test our history muscles.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Okay, I'm ready. I hope I remember the year.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

First question. In what country was the first known use of paper for wiping recorded? Next one. What year did Joseph Gaetti first sell his medicated paper sheets in America? Question three. What common item, often found hanging in outhouses, was used by many Americans before dedicated paper rolls became popular? Here's number four. What annoying feature did toilet paper not become officially splinter-free of until the year 1930? Last question. Besides paper, what common garden item did some ancient peoples use for cleaning? Great job history detectives! Let's see how you did with the answers. The first answer is China, way back in 600 AD. For question 2, Joseph Gaiety started selling his paper in the year 1857. Number three. The answer is the Sears catalogue, sometimes over 1,300 pages thick. Question 4. The paper wasn't officially splinter-free until 1930, meaning it contained tiny bits of wood fibre before then. And the final answer is the corn cob.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Man, thinking about the Roman sponge and then the splinter-free paper in 1930 just blows my mind. It's like a thousand little inventions all led to that one role.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

It really shows that history isn't just about kings and battles, it's about solving everyday problems. If you loved learning about how people made everyday life better, even for something like this, please ask your parents to support the show by leaving us a five-star rating. Just scroll down on your podcast app and tap the stars.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah, it helps other kids find out about these wild stories, like the one about the corn cobs.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

And speaking of more amazing learning, don't forget to head over to our site, kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games and activities there that are just as exciting as digging through history.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

If you want to send us a question like Jax did, or just say hi, email us at hello at kidopoly.com. We love hearing from all of you. That's all the time we have for today. Keep asking brave, curious questions, everyone. See you next time on History's Not Boring.