1900 - 1920 Salesman's Sample Porcelain Bathtub
date: label: date made
content: early 20th century
label: date made
content: 1900-1920
name: label: manufacturer
content: Trenton Potteries Company
notes: label: Description
content: By the early 20th century, many in cities and towns lived in homes with bathrooms. Consumers now viewed tubs as plumbing fixtures rather than furniture, along with sinks and toilets. In providing recommendations for fixtures in this new room, advice manuals and sanitary specialists preached against the heavy, free standing tubs behind which dust and dirt could collect.
label: Description
content: Bathtub manufacturers began to market built–in porcelain tubs, which they claimed were more durable and more easily cleaned than those of metal or iron enamel. Soon porcelain tubs came in various colors, “lend(ing) themselves to the most refined artistic and delicate (bath) decorations.”* The Trenton Potteries Company, maker of this sample, was one of the larger manufacturers of porcelain tubs in the United States.
label: Description
content: Many bathers, now accommodated by indoor plumbing and hot water, took to the tub for pleasure and relaxation, as well as to get clean. Ivory Soap advertisements emphasized this: “Ah—my Ivory bath—it’s a pleasure—pure pleasure.”** The bathtub became the center of the cleanliness ritual. The bathroom was on its way to becoming one of the featured and larger areas of the home in the later 20th and 21st centuries.
label: Description
content: For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th century, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.
label: Description
content: *Archibald M. Maddock, II, <I>The Polished Earth: A History of the Pottery Plumbing Fixture Industry in the United States</I>, (Trenton, NJ, 1962), 275.
label: Description
content: **Ivory Soap ad, 1953
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New Jersey, Trenton
topic: label: used
content: Bathing
label: referenced
content: Portable Bathtubs
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
label: See more items in
content: Bathtubs
label: See more items in
content: Family & Social Life
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0823.01
label: accession number
content: 1980.0823
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0823.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sample, sales
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: white (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: porcelain (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/16 in x 2 1/2 in x 1 5/8 in; 12.85875 cm x 6.35 cm x 4.1275 cm