The Privy and the Pump

The Cover Design THE PRIVY AND THE PUMP: THE MATTHEWMAN & JOHNSON EXCAVATING DEVICE WILLIAM WORTHINGTON, JR. Among the countless advances for which 20th-century America likely will be remembered is the almost universal use of sewerage. Yet in some respects the 19th century lives on. Who hasn’t attended an outdoor event where the needs of the participants were met by portable chemical toilets? Do the conditions fostered by these plastic cubicles—whose name is usually some imaginative corruption of the words “portable” and “toilet”—really differ from those brought about by the privy of old? Between city mains and individual pumps providing running water, by 1880 approximately one-quarter of all urban households had some form of water closet or flush toilet.1 Sewerage, however, the means for carrying away sewage—household slop and night soil—was not equally widespread. Although waste could be flushed from the house, in most instances it was destined only for a close-by holding tank—a cesspool or privy vault—not some distant disposal site. Buried cess­ pools were often close at hand in the backyard, but the privy vault might be right in the basement of the house. Despite the noxious and disagreeable conditions inherent in these receptacles of limited capac­ ity, there was little alternative. Urban circumstances necessitated that vaults be sealed tight, but regardless of this imperative, all of them leaked to some degree. In rural areas, leeching cesspools were constructed with unmortared stone sides and a dirt bottom so the liquid contents could readily pass into the surrounding ground.2 If the cesspool were close enough, and if there were cracks in the Mr. Worthington specializes in heavy machinery and civil engineering at the National Museum of American History. 'Joel Tarr, James McCurley, and Terry Yosie, “The Development and Impact of Urban Waste Water Technology ...” in Martin V. Melosi, ed., Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870—1930 (Austin, Tex., 1980), p. 62. ’Leonard Metcalf and Harrison P. Eddy, American Sewerage Practice (New York, 1915), pp. 784-85.© 1990 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040- 165X/90/3103-0002$01.00 451 452 William Worthington, Jr. foundation, these might also pass right back into the basement of the building from which they came. As it was not at all unusual to have a well close-by, drinking water could become contaminated and thus the source of countless evils, not least being typhoid and dysentery.3 Depending on underground conditions, wells a mile or more distant could be rendered unsafe by waste that had traveled along some unseen fissure.4 And eventually a leeching cesspool filled and had to be either cleaned out or abandoned. As the surrounding ground was likely to be saturated, the latter was preferable, for liquid would merely percolate to the surface if the sump saw further use. In rural areas it would, of course, be possible to dig another pit in a new and dry location. But in the city, where open ground was limited and an ostensibly “tight” holding tank essential, there was little recourse other than having it emptied at regular intervals in order to use it again. The earth closet, devised in the late 1860s partially in reaction to the evils of the cesspool, dealt with wastes in a dry condition. The end product constituted perhaps a tenth of the volume of what would be produced by a water closet and was far less likely to spread and pollute large areas. One major objection to the earth closet, however, stemmed from the very fact that it was a dry system.5 As it provided no means for dealing with the large volume of liquid waste produced by sinks and tubs, cesspools were still needed. In operation, an earth closet was not entirely unlike a flush toilet, with dry earth being released in place of water. A hopper containing the earth took the place of the water tank, while trapdoors served the same purpose as a water seal, preventing odors from escaping. It could be portable or built in. The earth closet did not flush the waste away but collected it beneath the seat and trapdoor in

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• The pressure of waste

  P Redfield, Steven Robins•Third World Quarterly•2025

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