TOILET TISSUE THROUGH THE AGES

Ancient Rome

All public toilets had a stick with a sponge attached to its end that soaked in a bucket of brine so citizens could have a tool to freshen up with.

China, around 1391 AD

The Bureau of Imperial Supplies began producing 720,000 sheets of toilet paper per year. Each sheet measured two feet by three feet!

Viking Age

During this time, people would freshen up with discarded sheep's wool.

Late Middle Ages

The French invented the bidet for proper cleansing.

1700s

Colonial Americans used corncobs to cleanse with. However, once newspapers became commonplace, people used the newspaper after they had finished reading it.

1880

The first actual paper produced for freshening up with was in England. The individual squares were sold in boxes, not rolls.

1902

Northern Paper Mills introduces Northern Tissue, made at the Green Bay East Mill in Wisconsin.

1920s

Northern Mills introduced toilet tissue on a roll.

1973

The Great Toilet Paper Shortage occurred in 1973, after a popular evening talk show host made a joke that there was an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States. The next morning, 20 million viewers bought up all the toilet paper they could find. By noon that day, most stores were out of toilet paper.