Pan Ohco wrote:

> On Thu, 03 Jun 2004 10:33:38 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
> > wrote:
>
>
> > Did you know that as late as 1940 almost half of US households
> >did not have indoor flush toilets?
>
> I was around in the late 40s living in New York city and every one I
> knew had indoor plumbing. I think that outdoor plumbing would be in
> the more rural areas of the U.S.


Yep, I'm 50 and when I was a kid most every rural abode (in downstate
Illinois) still had an outhouse. By that time everyone had indoor plumbing
and those outhouses were often stolen on Halloween and put in the middle of
a town's Main street or a school's football field and then burnt....

[The really big deal was people getting electricity in the late 30's - early
40's when the Rural Electrification Administration put electric lines in
rural areas. Towns had electricity, but many farms did not. My parents got
married in 1934 and didn't have electricity until c.1940 when the REA strung
power lines out to their farm. First things they got were a fridge and an
electric milk separator (?) thing. They already had a radio that ran off
batteries...the most expensive and desired appliance was an electric stove -
many people were still using old - fashioned wood or coal - burning
cookstoves at the time. Some folks with the money had fridges, freezers, or
stoves that ran off bottled LP gas...in fact some still do....

Folks don't realize this now, but rural US life for many in 1930 was not
greatly unchanged from rural life in 1830...think Appalachian- style
conditions, but on a greater scale...]


NYC still had plenty of tenement - style buildings in the 1940's - didn't
many of these places have shared toilet facilities?

--
Best
Greg