Putrid smells besieged this major city until one man's ingenious paper invention unexpectedly created a $55 billion industry
Today its estimated that 21 billion units of this paper invention are sold each year, with the U.S. consuming more than any other country
Living in New York City in 1850 was a gritty, bustling experience, shaped by a mix of opportunity and hardship.
The city’s population had exploded to over 515,000, making it America’s biggest urban center. Immigrants, especially from Ireland and Germany, poured in—fleeing famine and unrest that was taking place in their homelands.
Most of the people that came to New York lived south of 14th Street in Manhattan, where streets were a jumble of cobblestone, dirt, and mud, churned by horse-drawn carriages and roaming pigs that doubled as garbage disposal. The air stank of manure, coal smoke, and open sewers—sanitation was primitive, with waste often dumped into streets or the rivers.
Housing varied wildly. The wealthy lived in elegant brownstones or mansions along Fifth Avenue, with gas lighting and servants, while the working class crammed into boarding houses or shanties. A typical laborer’s family might share a 10-by-12-foot room, cooking on an open stove, fetching water from a street pump.
The Five Points slum, near today’s Chinatown, was notorious: overcrowded tenements housed families in single rooms, with no running water or indoor plumbing. Cholera outbreaks, like the one in 1849, killed thousands, a grim reminder of the city’s public health struggles.
Winter meant huddling near a coal fire; summer brought sweltering heat and disease-carrying mosquitoes from stagnant water.
The New York we know today is much different than what took place in 1850’s. Men toiled as dockworkers, cart men, or factory hands, earning $1 to $1.50 a day—barely enough for rent and bread. Women sewed garments in sweatshops or worked as domestic aides for richer households. Children hawked newspapers or scavenged rags and bones to sell.
As you can imagine, class lines were sharp. The elite dined at Delmonico’s on oysters and champagne, while the poor ate stale bread or stew from street vendors.
For someone like Joseph Gayetty, a middle-class man in 1850 New York, life might’ve meant a modest home and a job at a public house such as an inn or tavern. He lived with his wife, Margaret Louisa Bogart, and their five young children.
However by 1857, his life would change in an unexpected way from an medical invention that was nothing more than flat, square-sized pieces of paper. Joseph had a personal servant and a small estate worth $1,000, which back then was considered a small fortune.
Yet not all ends well with Joseph and his ingenious invention. In fact two brothers would take over the entire market.
I’ll tell you more about Joseph in just a moment, but for now we’re going to side step our way through the history of toilets.
I Can Smell You Here, There and Everywhere
Romans called them matella, while French people called them “pot de chambre.” Greeks called them lasanas.
In fact archaeologist found fragments of lasanas dating back to 500 BCE.
They were simple, round pots with handles. Sturdy enough that once you sat on the pot, it could your weight. But that’s not all it held.
When you needed to take a #2, you sat on the pot. And when finished, dumped the contents outside into a nearby river, cesspit or even the streets. If you were rich enough, a slave or servant would handle the dumping.
Castles often had "garderobes"—small rooms with a chute for waste—but chamber pots were still essential for nighttime use as making your way down a dark, damp corridor was no easy task.
Speaking of a not so easy task, servants were made to clean the chute. We’re talking nasty stuff here folks.
Waste often piled up at the base of the castle walls, attracting flies and contributing to disease. In some cases, like at Edinburgh Castle, the rocky terrain below made natural cleanup impossible, so waste accumulated.
Castles near rivers or with moats, like Château de Chenonceau in France, had a slight advantage, as flowing water could wash some waste away, but this still led to pollution.
Chamber pots and garderobes remained in place along with out houses until the 1800’s, as indoor plumbing and actual flushing toilets became more accessible.
In cities like New York, London, and Paris, sewer systems started taking shape in the mid-19th century. Across the pond, London’s modern sewer system began in the 1850s after the "Great Stink" of 1858.
That’s when London experienced a heat wave, with temperatures reaching into the upper 90 degrees. The heat intensified the decomposition of sewage in the Thames, creating a putrid smell that permeated the city.
The smell was inescapable. People reported nausea, fainting, and headaches. Businesses near the river struggled, and boatmen on the Thames found their trade unbearable.
The stench even reached the Houses of Parliament, located on the riverbank at Westminster. MPs gagged during sessions, hanging lime-soaked curtains over windows and spreading chloride of lime (a disinfectant) on the floors to mask the odor.
In 1856, the Metropolitan Board of Works appointed civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to design a new sewer system. He proposed a network of underground sewers to intercept waste before it reached the Thames, diverting it downstream to be released into the river at a safer distance from the city.
Work began in 1859 and took over a decade to complete. Bazalgette’s system included 1,100 miles of new sewers, with 82 miles of main intercepting sewers running parallel to the Thames. By the mid-1860s, the new sewers began operating, dramatically reducing the stench and pollution in central London.
Meanwhile in the U.S., the 1880s saw a push for indoor plumbing, with cities like Chicago and Boston expanding sewer networks. By 1900, about 15% of U.S. homes had flush toilets, a number that jumped to 50% by 1920.
Ouch That Hurts
While flushing toilets replaced chamber pots, and sewer systems replaced dumping waste into nearby rivers and streets, there was still one thing that hadn’t been invented … a proper way to clean your bottom.
Taking a poo and the clean up afterward was harsh … and I mean harsh. Like so harsh it could actually hurt your bottom.
But desperate times call for desperate measures.
For instance, in ancient Greece, people used smooth stones or pebbles called pessoi (from the Greek word for "pebble"). These were often kept in piles near latrines, and their use is referenced in Greek texts—some even suggest the term "three stones" became slang for a thorough cleaning.
Romans used broken pieces of ceramic, called ostraka, which were smoothed into small, flat shapes. Public latrines featured a tersorium, a sponge attached to a stick. Users would dip the sponge in a channel of running water or a bucket of vinegar (for disinfection) and use it to clean themselves. The sponge was then rinsed and left for the next person.
In medieval Europe, people often used handfuls of hay, straw, or wool, especially in rural areas. Moss was a popular choice in northern Europe, where it grew abundantly. It was soft, absorbent, and free. Leaves were also used, though they could be less comfortable depending on the plant.
In some regions, small wooden sticks or scrapers, called "scraping sticks" or "hygienic sticks", were used to scrape rather than wipe. These were common in medieval Scandinavia and parts of Asia, where they were sometimes carved for better grip.
In colonial America, corncobs became a go-to option, especially in rural areas. After the kernels were removed, the cob was soft enough to use but still abrasive. They were often dried and stored for this purpose, and their use persisted into the 19th century.
However as printing became more widespread after Gutenberg’s press in the 1440s, paper became a new option. By the 1700s, old books, pamphlets, or almanacs were often torn up for use in privies.
In the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack was a popular choice—some editions even had a hole in the corner for hanging in outhouses.
Heck even the Sears catalog became a stable in the bathroom … and not just for reading but for wiping too. But when it was printed on glossy paper, it didn’t work as well and that ended the catalog’s run as the number one wipe.
Now as you can imagine using a page of a catalog, a corncob or a scraping stick wasn’t very hygienic. They could irritate, even tear your bottom and also be the cause of disease.
You’d think someone would find a way to make cleaning your bottom easier and more comfortable. Well Dear Reader that person was Joseph Gayetty.
Small Enough to Fit in Your Hand, Strong Enough to Wipe It Away
While we know that Joseph was born in Massachusetts, there’s not a lot of information on his early life. He must have been a bit of a tinker, toying with gadgets and ideas. Or maybe he could no longer endure the stench that surrounded the city of New York. And that lead him to invent what he called a “medical wipe,” specifically for cleaning your butt.
Records show that in 1857, Joseph began marketing his medicated papers to the public. The paper was made from a type of hemp-based Manila paper, which was softer than many alternatives of the time.
Joseph also infused the sheets with aloe, which allowed him to market his invention as a medicinal product with soothing properties. This was especially good for those who suffered from hemorrhoids. He called it "Gayetty’s Medicated Paper," and each sheet bore his name as a watermark, possibly to distinguish it from knockoffs.
He sold it in packs of 500 sheets for 50 cents, which was pricey for the era—roughly equivalent to $15 today. Gayetty pitched it as a hygienic necessity, claiming that poor sanitation led to disease and that his paper was a solution.
Despite his efforts, the product didn’t catch on widely. Most Americans saw it as an unnecessary luxury, and the habit of using whatever was at hand persisted. Indoor plumbing was still rare, and the need for specialized paper wasn’t obvious.
Sadly, Gayetty’s business eventually faded, and he died in 1895 without seeing his invention become a household name.
From Flat Sheets to Big Rolls
You could say that Joseph was ahead of his time. Yet his idea laid the foundation for others to turn paper wipes into a household necessity. And one of the first to do so were brothers Edward Irvin Scott and Clarence Scott.
Initially the brothers focused on coarse paper products but shifted toward toilet paper as indoor plumbing became more common in the late 19th century. By the later part of 1890’s they had introduced rolls instead of flat sheets.
They sourced paper from a supplier, cut it into rolls, and sold it unbranded to wholesalers like hotels, stores, and pharmacies. This approach kept costs low and avoided the social stigma of marketing such a personal product directly to consumers. Retailers would then sell it under their own labels, making it discreet yet accessible.
In 1902, they introduced Waldorf, one of their first branded toilet paper products, marketed as a high-quality, affordable option. They also improved the paper’s texture, moving away from the splintery, rough sheets of the past. Their big break came with better manufacturing—using automated machinery to mass-produce rolls—and clever distribution, targeting the growing urban middle class with flush toilets.
Sales took off as hygiene standards rose and plumbing spread. By 1911, Scott Paper was selling 400 train-car loads of toilet paper annually, dominating the U.S. market. Their success cemented toilet paper as a household staple.
Other companies popped up including Kimberly Clark, which eventually bought out the Scott Paper Company.
Today, the largest toilet paper brand is Angel Soft with annual sales of $1.2 billion. The industry itself is huge with $55 billion in revenues. As for the amount of toilet paper used, roughly 83 million rolls are manufactured every day. A single person uses about 141 rolls a year.
That’s a lot of wiping and yet without Joseph’s contribution, we might still be using corncobs, torn pages of a catalog or worse yet, a scratching stick.
Amazing Quotes by Amazing People
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” - Henry Ford
Good story. My admiration for your research on this. The info is amazing.