Does the famous American history of the bathtub hoax the one
that stubbornly refuses to be drowned in spite of repeated denials?
By: Ringo Bones
According to hoax scholars, the American history of the
bathtub hoax is a textbook example of a practical joke-based hoax. Not only
does it qualifies being defined as “a deception for mockery or mischief” but
also qualifies as something being deliberately concocted untruth made to
masquerade as truth. Originated by H.L. Mencken, this “somewhat believable
hoax” refuses to be drowned in spite of repeated denials. Originally published
as a news article in the New York Evening Mail on December 28, 1917 under the
heading, “A Neglected Anniversary” – it states that the first American bathtub
was displayed in 1842 by Adam Thompson of Cincinnati, at a stag party, where
the entertainment consisted of trying the bathtub out for an actual dip.
To Mr. Thompson’s surprise, the article states that physicians
denounced the bathtub as a menace to health. The state of Boston prohibited the
use of the bathtub except under strict medical advice; various states even
imposed installation taxes or special water taxes; and in the state of
Philadelphia, a measure forbidding the use of bathtubs from November to May was
defeated by a mere two votes. Despite this opposition, it was nigh impossible
to legislate the bathtub out of existence. Even President Millard Fillmore
installed one in the White House after his inauguration in 1850 and took the
first “presidential bath”.
Of course not a word in that very interesting New York
Evening Mail article was true. Nearly ten years, however, H.L. Mencken found it
necessary to write: “Pretty soon I began to encounter my preposterous “facts”
in the writings of other men. They began to be used by chiropractors and other
such quacks as evidence of stupidity of medical men. They began to be cited by
medical men as proof of the progress of public hygiene. They got into learned
journals. They were alluded to on the floor of Congress… Finally, I began to
find them in standard works of reference.”
Even today, the “facts” concocted by H. L. Mencken about the
introduction of the bathtub into the United States are still finding their way into
innumerable newspaper and magazine articles, speeches by prominent persons,
plumbing advertisements, official US government publications and even serious
books on social history. The American history of the bathtub hoax refuses to be
drowned, indeed.
