I’ve always been drawn to social history, so the chance to learn what people used for toilet paper in the middle ages or how deodorant was invented and popularized in the early 20th century was perfect for me. The three years I spent researching The Dirt on Clean included trips to see the bathing facilities in Pompeii and actually bathing in ancient mineral baths and spas in Hungary, Switzerland, and Germany, and what’s not to like about that?
I wrote...
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History
By
Katherine Ashenburg
What is my book about?
The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is Katherine Ashenburg’s starting point for a unique exploration of Western culture, which yields surprising insights into our notions of privacy, health, individuality, religion, and sexuality. Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description.
Filled with amusing and sometimes startling anecdotes, The Dirt on Clean takes us on a journey that is not always for the squeamish. And there’s no reason to feel superior to our less than pristine ancestors: our modern understanding of “clean" is no more rational and in some ways more dangerous than those that came before us. Ashenburg’s tour of history’s baths and bathrooms reveals much about our changing and most intimate selves — what we desire, what we ignore, what we fear, and a significant part of what we are.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Book of the Bath
By
Françoise de Bonneville
Why this book?
A coffee table book, but a sublime one. If you want to read one book on this subject (after The Dirt on Clean, of course), The Book of the Bath is it. Not only is the text intelligent, comprehensive, and readable, it is sumptuously illustrated with paintings, photographs, and ads. Covering "The Story of Water", "Private Baths", "Public Bath"s, and "The Modern Bathroom", it concludes (perhaps because the author is French) with "The Sensual Delights of the Bath". Highly recommended.
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Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness
By
Suellen Hoy
Why this book?
How did Americans in the 19th century, who were described by one traveller as “filthy, bordering on the beastly,” transform themselves into arguably the cleanest people in the Western world? Hint: unexpected things such as the rise of hotels, the Civil War, and the growth of advertising are important parts of this journey towards obsessive cleanliness. Hoy charts this surprising transformation with wit and skill.
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Stronger Than Dirt
By
Juliann Sivulka
Why this book?
Americans believe advertisements, especially those that promise cleanliness. Europeans, who are much less obsessed with soaps, deodorants, creams, and other cleansing products, find this naive. As described by Sivulka, Americans see ads for personal hygiene products as allies in their quest never to “offend,” to borrow one of advertising’s favorite words. Advertising and toilet soap (as opposed to laundry or housecleaning soap) grew up together, beginning in the late 19th century, and ads made brilliant use of Americans’ worries about finding Mr. Right and getting ahead in business. Sivulka’s enlightening book is copiously illustrated by a fascinating anthology of the ads themselves.
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The Comforts of Home: The American House and the Evolution of Modern Convenience
By
Merritt Ierley
Why this book?
Ierley’s deftly researched and written book follows the evolution of heating, light, kitchens, and bathrooms in the American house from 1805 to the present, but the sections on bathing and bathrooms alone are worth the price of admission. His use of graphic charts is particularly enlightening: a standout is the history of comfort and convenience in the Eisenhower household of Abilene, Kansas (home of President Dwight Eisenhower), as it progresses from 1898 to the 1930s.
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The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age
By
Jean-Pierre Goubert,
Andrew Wilson
Why this book?
Europeans had feared water since the Black Death of 1347 when the doctors of the Sorbonne pronounced that people who took warm baths were more susceptible to the plague. There followed what the French historian Jules Michelet called (with some hyperbole) “five hundred years without a bath.” Goubert’s scholarly but always readable book describes the gradual and tentative death of this longstanding myth. Beginning in the 18th century, the emergence of the idea of water as a benefit and not a danger to public health was complicated and touched many areas of life. Goubert is adept at moving from social to cultural to administrative sectors, with just the right balance of theory and anecdotes.
