We don’t know much about Joseph Gayetty except that he introduced to the world one of our most vital products: toilet paper. Gayetty marketed his product as medicated paper. It was a single sheet of paper made from hemp containing aloe as a lubricant. It was thought to be for hemorrhoid treatment.
Medical societies scoffed at it as having dubious value. However, there were counterclaims made about the toxicity of using paper with ink on a sensitive part of the body. No matter the medical claims, the public wasn’t ready for Gayetty’s product. Indoor plumbing was virtually non-existent. Customers found no value in buying a product that was now obtained for free from catalogs, pamphlets, and other discarded paper.
Twenty-two years later, Walter Alcock, a British manufacturer, came up with the idea of a roll of paper where sheets could be torn off. But Victorian England was also not yet ready.
At the time of Alcock’s work in England, there were two brothers in America named Edward and Clarence Scott. They owned a paper company and were looking for a product that met three criteria: indispensable, disposable, and nonreusable. Toilet paper met each of their criteria.
The widespread acceptance of indoor plumbing made the toilet paper produced by the Scotts acceptable. They also produced the toilet paper in small rolls which was essential because bathrooms were tiny. Each roll had the slogan: “soft as old linen.”
At first, the advertising of toilet paper was minimal in deference to its application. As toilet paper became a universally needed product, advertising became more aggressive.
What Scotts had hoped for in the 19th Century was the early story of the Covid-19 pandemic. Toilet paper became the story of the shortage-driven panic of the pandemic.
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“I’ve learned life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.”—Andy Rooney (commentator)