Latest / Ridiculous History / The History of Morning Routines, Part One: Thank Goodness People Learned to Wash Themselves

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The History of Morning Routines, Part One: Thank Goodness People Learned to Wash Themselves · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for mister Mourning
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  Speaker 1: himself or super producer mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: You're saying about about like I'm such a night owl,
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  Speaker 2: even years after being a getting out of the bartending.
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  Speaker 2: It came like if I stay up way too late,
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  Speaker 2: like one night, it goes straight back to it.
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  Speaker 3: It's tough. So you get to a certain age you
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  Speaker 3: got to catch up on that sleep. I've become the
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  Speaker 3: same way. It's like ninety thirty PM to bed for
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  Speaker 3: me sometimes in six am to rise. The morning routine
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  Speaker 3: is a big part of my life these days. And
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  Speaker 3: I'm here for it, y'all.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't really sleep. My name is Ben Bullen.
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  Speaker 1: That voice you just heard is none other than mister
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  Speaker 1: Noel Brown. And in this episode we are exploring the
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  Speaker 1: history of something that a lot of us don't think
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  Speaker 1: about through this lens. For many, the majority of people,
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  Speaker 1: I imagine, when you wake up, whatever time that is,
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  Speaker 1: you have a wake up routine, if you're rising in
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  Speaker 1: the morning. We see this all the time. In real
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  Speaker 1: life and in fiction, you have rituals right. They may
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  Speaker 1: be elaborate, for some they may be very simple. You
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  Speaker 1: might have your morning shower, brush your teeth right, give
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  Speaker 1: your hair a comb, and wink at yourself in the mirror.
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  Speaker 1: You might also have a bunch of makeup and so on.
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  Speaker 3: Some words of affirmation, perhaps what is it? Stuart Smalley
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  Speaker 3: from snl O Old School Essay says, I'm smart enough,
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  Speaker 3: I'm something enough, and gosh darn and I I matter.
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  Speaker 3: I forget it. You know, people like me? People like me.
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  Speaker 3: That's exactly right now. You know, maybe not all that,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm serious when I say that the morning routine
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  Speaker 3: and just routine and ritual in general has become a
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  Speaker 3: lot more important to me of late, as far as
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  Speaker 3: like a way to kind of center things and focus
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  Speaker 3: energies in the right direction. I always was kind of
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  Speaker 3: like down on it or thought it was stupid, but
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  Speaker 3: I am fully on board these days. Whether it be skincare,
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  Speaker 3: you know, hair washing, shampoo, face washes, I'm here for
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  Speaker 3: all of it, guys. Beard poultices not poultices has leaves
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  Speaker 3: and sticks in it. We are going to talk about
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  Speaker 3: ungwint and ungwint. That's the word hundreds. I can jump
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  Speaker 3: in here real quick. I mean Todill's point right there.
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  Speaker 2: Like I was always just like you know, brush your teeth,
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  Speaker 2: go to class, brush teeth go to work type of person.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, as age, I've learned more and more,
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  Speaker 2: and it's actually funny enough, like your blood pressure is
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  Speaker 2: often the highest, like an hour or so before you
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  Speaker 2: wake up. Your brain is just running through rem and
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  Speaker 2: stuff like that. So I've learned that in the morning
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  Speaker 2: it's super important for me to just kind of take
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  Speaker 2: some time and not to run out the door, because
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  Speaker 2: I can just run out of the door and do
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  Speaker 2: things and just be a jerk to every person I meet.
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  Speaker 1: You have to have those quiet moments with yourself. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of these processes or processes whatever you prefer, that
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  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today, they have varying levels
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  Speaker 1: of importance to varying individuals. I'm not gonna get into
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  Speaker 1: my weird routines, but we know they have ancient origins.
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  Speaker 3: They tend to write, especially your routines megachees, jeez, thank
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  Speaker 3: you like Eldritch origins. Mist oh Man.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the Blood Covenant holds, but still everybody.
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  Speaker 3: Everything has to make a living.
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  Speaker 1: And we wanted to start with the origins of soap,
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  Speaker 1: which nol I feel that we have we have discussed
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  Speaker 1: somehow in the past.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's another accidental invention. Yeah, because I believe there
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  Speaker 3: was material running down a mountain from burning of bodies. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: and then it created.
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  Speaker 2: At animal sacrifice.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it went down Mount Sapo.
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  Speaker 2: But the problem is, no one has ever found a
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  Speaker 2: Mount Sapo or anything referred to Mount Stapo.
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  Speaker 1: And this is coming to us thanks to some excellent
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  Speaker 1: research by our good pal and research associate, Jeff Factor G.
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  Speaker 3: Bartlett.
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  Speaker 1: I asked him what he wanted to be called, and
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  Speaker 1: he said factor Gen.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, that's mysterious. That sounds like a brand of fuel,
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  Speaker 3: like a Alvaline rating of something like that. But yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, look that the whole you know, coming down
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  Speaker 3: the mountain situation does Reek of Apocrypha, but at least
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't Wreek of bo and that's because of soap,
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  Speaker 3: which it may or may not have invented.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the origin of soap is apocryphals right word. It's
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  Speaker 1: as mysterious as the origin of cheese, right, which also
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  Speaker 1: has a cool story about its providence that has not
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  Speaker 1: been proven. The thing is the history of soap. Its
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  Speaker 1: origin story is gross. You could tell we were referencing
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  Speaker 1: an earlier episode on Sacrifices Soap. Apparently this is according
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  Speaker 1: to the New York Times. By the way, soap most
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  Speaker 1: likely originated as a product of a long ago cookout.
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  Speaker 1: So if you've ever roasted meat over a spit we
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  Speaker 1: are all three big fans of cookouts, then you'll see
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  Speaker 1: that these globs of unctuous fat driven to the ashes.
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  Speaker 3: Shous I love that word, so whether or not the
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  Speaker 3: specifics of the like and then it slid down the
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  Speaker 3: side of Mount whatever, and they discovered it and soap
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  Speaker 3: was born. That usually is an oversimplification whenever you hear
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  Speaker 3: like a one story worry solution to something that all
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  Speaker 3: encompassing like soap. Once again, parallel thinking and also just
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  Speaker 3: parallel accidents, because it is a result of something. In
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  Speaker 3: every interesting discovery, Many interesting discoveries are the results of
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  Speaker 3: something happening as a byproduct and someone thinking, oh what
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  Speaker 3: if I like rubbed this all over my filthy body.
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  Speaker 3: You know, not everything specifically soap, but you know, like
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  Speaker 3: a mushroom. We talk about this like the someone decided
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  Speaker 3: they were going to eat it, then they died. Then
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  Speaker 3: enough people tried to eat different ones that they figured
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  Speaker 3: out that this one was tasty, and this one will
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  Speaker 3: kill you, and this one will make you see funny
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  Speaker 3: pink elephants.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so they they did figure out. Now, listen,
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  Speaker 1: the past was a very dirty time, just to be
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  Speaker 1: quite honest, And that point about bo holds true. If
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  Speaker 1: you traveled back to the past, depending on when you
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  Speaker 1: emerged in the timeline, what of your first impressions would
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  Speaker 1: be just the hellish combination of unpleasant smells. So people
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  Speaker 1: somewhere figured out that you could take this stuff, this
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  Speaker 1: fat dripped into ashes, and you would have a substance
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  Speaker 1: that was kind of slippy, slippery, and it could lift
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  Speaker 1: dirt off your skin. We know that. So we don't
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  Speaker 1: really know the origin of soap, and I love the
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  Speaker 1: way you frame that story, Nol. We do know, however,
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  Speaker 1: that written recipes for soap date back almost five thousand years,
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  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of it's a phrase that you
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  Speaker 1: often use. There's a lot of parallel thinking. It's something
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  Speaker 1: that people probably independently invented at multiple points in history.
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  Speaker 3: Because everyone was cooking flesh, and all that flesh was excreting.
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  Speaker 3: That's the wrong word, the unctious dripping fluids. Gosh, I'm
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  Speaker 3: really not doing myself any favors linguistically here, but you
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  Speaker 3: get nail image. This is happening the world over. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that was one of the first things man figured out,
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  Speaker 3: was how to sustain themselves by eating living things. So
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  Speaker 3: talo or animal fat or if you remember that pretty
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  Speaker 3: gross little subplot and Fight Club where they used liposuction
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  Speaker 3: material to make soap. Tyler Durden and all that movie
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  Speaker 3: maybe didn't age the best, but I still hold the
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  Speaker 3: place a fond place in my heart to Tala or
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  Speaker 3: animal fat reacts with lie, which is also something that
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  Speaker 3: is featured in Fight Club, and a process called stephonification.
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  Speaker 3: We have discussed a lot of this soap stuff in
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  Speaker 3: previous episodes, but this is just step one of the
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  Speaker 3: morning routine, and we're gonna get to a myriad of
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  Speaker 3: others very quickly. We thought we'd do a little bit
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  Speaker 3: of a review on soap for everyone absolutely ed.
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  Speaker 1: While we're reviewing that, let's take a brief excursion to
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  Speaker 1: talk about the origin of the morning shower. Back in
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  Speaker 1: the day when your beloved ancestors were waking up up
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  Speaker 1: in ancient mournings fell ridiculous historians. They also liked a
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  Speaker 1: good morning shower, and the best way to get clean
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  Speaker 1: was to go under a waterfall if you were lucky
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  Speaker 1: enough to live by one, or to bathe in a
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  Speaker 1: pool or a lake. The water fall has natural water pressure,
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  Speaker 1: so it's better at getting junk and dirt.
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  Speaker 3: Off of you. Right.
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  Speaker 1: This also shows us that people who are not lucky
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  Speaker 1: enough to have this access didn't really have much recourse
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  Speaker 1: or much agency to clean themselves up. Society had to
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  Speaker 1: advance with the invention of the jug.
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  Speaker 3: It's so crazy because you never think to transport water, right,
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  Speaker 3: There were so people as that that was how do
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  Speaker 3: we do this? It comes from these places and it's
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  Speaker 3: falling through our fingers. What do we do?
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  Speaker 1: I just love it because that's that's peak ridiculous history.
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  Speaker 1: To imagine that communities and civilizations rose and fell without
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  Speaker 1: ever figuring out jugs.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the humble vessel vessel and then you know, it's
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  Speaker 3: also why you see early culture of course bathing directly
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  Speaker 3: in rivers. I mean, not that they hadn't also figured
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  Speaker 3: out jugs by that point. But even before that, like
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  Speaker 3: when we think of, like perhaps in India, cultural significance
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  Speaker 3: of folks bathing in the Ganges, which of course held
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  Speaker 3: religious significance as well, but they obviously had vessels. But
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  Speaker 3: I can just imagine early man, for lack of a
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  Speaker 3: better term, early sapiens, coming upon these bodies of water
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  Speaker 3: and figuring out that if you just kind of splash
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  Speaker 3: the stuff on, even without soap or just you know,
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  Speaker 3: took a little swim, it would be refreshing and potentially defunctifying.
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  Speaker 3: And really quickly, I just want to say, we're talking
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  Speaker 3: about the shower, and immediately popped into my mind my
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  Speaker 3: favorite European word for shower, which is from courtesy of
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  Speaker 3: the French, which is of course la douche. Yes, it's
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  Speaker 3: just it's good, it's visual. It's like I can I
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  Speaker 3: can hear it. I can hear what it's described, the
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  Speaker 3: sound of the water cleansing you and splashing upon you,
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  Speaker 3: making a little hunder sound.
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  Speaker 1: You know. I also I am a fan. We come
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  Speaker 1: from very different backgrounds, folks. I am a fan of
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  Speaker 1: the Schwitz. Yes, I love which is right, yes them bath.
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  Speaker 3: Can we talk about this recently in the sopranos. There
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  Speaker 3: was a whole situation where he wouldn't take a Schwitz,
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  Speaker 3: he wouldn't make because he was he was a rat,
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  Speaker 3: the rat.
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  Speaker 1: I see, Yeah, Schwitz means a lot of different things.
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  Speaker 1: But but we love, we we love these different words
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  Speaker 1: for these mourning routines, and the shower, the cleansing of
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  Speaker 1: the body is one of the ancient and most fundamental
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  Speaker 1: aspects of most mourning routines. We also, I love thanks
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  Speaker 1: to the humble jug the vessel, because now I can't
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  Speaker 1: get it out of my I'm picturing like thousands of
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  Speaker 1: years of human beings finding a river or a lake
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  Speaker 1: or a waterfall and saying, well, I live here now
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  Speaker 1: because I don't know how to move this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. And then of course we get into more advanced
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  Speaker 3: versions of water moving in the form of aqueducts and
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  Speaker 3: then of course indoor plumbing. The Greeks, however, when it
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  Speaker 3: comes to the morning routine, adopted the idea of this
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  Speaker 3: morning cleanse, this bath, this douche and improved upon it
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  Speaker 3: by developing the first as we're alluding to, drainage systems
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  Speaker 3: drainage e LII trainage.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is another pivotal moment in the history
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  Speaker 1: of cleanliness because the Greeks adopted this idea of kind
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  Speaker 1: of again cribbing from earlier concepts discovered and invented by
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  Speaker 1: ancient egypt and Mesopotamian society. Egyptians never really got past
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  Speaker 1: the primary stage of having water carried in and out
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  Speaker 1: of a room manually. So the Greeks looked around. This
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  Speaker 1: is all perfect for an ancient made for TV commercial.
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  Speaker 1: The Greeks looked around and said, there's got to be
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  Speaker 1: a better way, and so they came up with this,
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  Speaker 1: as you described, ingenious drainage system. For the first time
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  Speaker 1: in known history, water could be transported in and out
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  Speaker 1: of rooms via pipes asterisk caveat. It's not a total
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  Speaker 1: win because the first pipes were made of lead.
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, And I think we talked about on
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  Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know in a strange
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  Speaker 3: news segment. A study that recently showed that the fall
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  Speaker 3: of Rome was at least in part due to all
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  Speaker 3: the lead that they were taking in. They experienced a
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  Speaker 3: decline in let's just say intellect.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and impulse control and things like that. Please
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  Speaker 1: check out later studies. We're going to do an episode
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  Speaker 1: about lead in the near future, but please also check
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: out these studies about lead exposure in more modern times.
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  Speaker 1: There's some real science to it, and it's disturbing.
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  Speaker 3: If we want to.
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  Speaker 1: Keep it on a positive note, I guess we could say,
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  Speaker 1: Nolan Max that this means the ancient Greeks were history's
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  Speaker 1: first plumbers. The showers were also made accessible to people
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  Speaker 1: who were not the one percenters. There were bath houses,
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  Speaker 1: you know, communal areas just like a modern public pool
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  Speaker 1: where everybody can have a schitz together.
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  Speaker 3: For sure, and there definitely still are We've talked about
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  Speaker 3: I think more than one occasion. Here in Atlanta, we've
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  Speaker 3: got an amazing Korean bath house out in the Buford
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  Speaker 3: Highway area called Jesu. And in Europe, in Germany in particular,
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  Speaker 3: other places in Europe, for sure, bath house culture is huge,
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  Speaker 3: and there are these incredibly elaborate and ornate, these Roman
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  Speaker 3: style kind of bath houses that are very popular for
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  Speaker 3: you know, young and old alike.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait, Well, finally get our ridiculous history
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  Speaker 1: field trips in play. I can't wait to take you
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  Speaker 1: guys to an Onsend in Japan. Those are so this
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  Speaker 1: communal bathhouse thing to your point, still is very much
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  Speaker 1: a extant invention and phenomenon. Unfortunately for ancient history, as
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  Speaker 1: we know spoiler, the Roman and the Greek empires collapsed
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  Speaker 1: and this technology, all the progress that we're making on
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  Speaker 1: it was consequentially held back. It was put on pause
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  Speaker 1: for centuries, not exactly lost, but the breaks were indeed
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  Speaker 1: pumped shift in priorities.
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  Speaker 3: We could call it.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe this is this is not us talking trash about
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  Speaker 1: Western Europe back in the day. Instead, we're referring directly
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  Speaker 1: to Cleaninginstitute dot org, which tells us the following after
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  Speaker 1: Rome fell around four to six seven CE, Europe got
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  Speaker 1: dirty bathing habits declined so much that it became a
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  Speaker 1: public health crisis, Oh for sure.
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  Speaker 3: And you can check out our episode on the Great
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  Speaker 3: Stink of London, which deals with a lot of these
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  Speaker 3: same concepts. The idea of miasma theory or diseased air
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: which which as we know, you know, there is such
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  Speaker 3: a thing as airborne contagions. The idea of a virus
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  Speaker 3: becoming airborne is very very real. But stink can't exactly
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  Speaker 3: kill you, but bacteria can, you know, I mean, the
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  Speaker 3: really really nasty byproducts of you know, sewage, untreated sewage
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  Speaker 3: flowing through the streets, and while it's not exactly the
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  Speaker 3: same as an airborne contagion, it's it's not good. But
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  Speaker 3: this idea of miasma theory was it was debunked. This
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  Speaker 3: is what I'm getting at.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was debunked, but they were on the right track,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So picture the open sewers.
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  Speaker 1: Picture all the nasty stuff that a product of human
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  Speaker 1: society becoming a vector for bacteria, for mold, for fungus,
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  Speaker 1: for vermin, for intestinal parasites, you know, things that humans
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  Speaker 1: at the time didn't really have an understanding of. Hence
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  Speaker 1: we have miasthma theory. So there were a couple of
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  Speaker 1: areas of the medieval world where people still try to
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  Speaker 1: keep themselves themselves clean. Oh we should also mention, yes,
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  Speaker 1: if you are thinking this as you play along your home,
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  Speaker 1: being dirty was a factor that led to the Black
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  Speaker 1: Death the pleasure. It was not the only reason. The
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  Speaker 1: main reason was the fleas on the rats, but not
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  Speaker 1: having cleanliness rituals also helped. Still, daily bathing was a
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  Speaker 1: common custom in Japan by this time by what we
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: call the Middle Ages, and at Iceland, people did the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: coolest thing. They went to hot springs. Have you ever
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: been to a hot spring once?
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: It is literally a town I want to stay in
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: North Carolina called hot springs, and there are these like
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  Speaker 3: open kind of I don't know, like that's sort of
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  Speaker 3: coming out of the earth that have this bubbling, you know,
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  Speaker 3: kind of jacuzzi water in it, and they're great. I
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  Speaker 3: actually went with my kid's mom when she was pregnant
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  Speaker 3: with said kid, and it was there were like some
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  Speaker 3: really low temperature ones which were okay for her to
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  Speaker 3: sit in, and then some that got really really really
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  Speaker 3: really hot as well. But it's interesting how they were
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  Speaker 3: the thermal vents. I think like the location of them
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  Speaker 3: and the number of them sort of determined how hot
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  Speaker 3: the particular pool would be.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely I've been to. I think I've been to the
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  Speaker 1: one you're describing. I've also been to some in several
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  Speaker 1: other countries, and I got to tell you, they're not
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  Speaker 1: all created equal, that's right. Some of the most disappointing,
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  Speaker 1: some of the most disappointed hot springs I visited were
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  Speaker 1: in Guatemala when I was living there. But I you
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  Speaker 1: want to give points for honesty if you go to
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  Speaker 1: warm springs Georgia. Yeah, they don't say they're hot because
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  Speaker 1: they're not springs worm springs, Yeah, which sounds better than
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  Speaker 1: tepid butcher. Anyhow, here we are, we are fast forwarding.
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  Speaker 1: We see that right around the seventeenth century, excuse me,
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  Speaker 1: cleanliness and bathing starts to be a priority again in society,
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  Speaker 1: particularly if you have a lot of money and prestige.
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  Speaker 3: Right, cleanliness is next to godliness. Isn't an old adage
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  Speaker 3: for nothing? Right? I mean it was literally intended to
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  Speaker 3: wash their ass as some people might say. Beat me
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: on that, Max, because it was a genuine public health crisis.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: But it's interesting too. We're going to get to a
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: place where the tables kind of turn and people are
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: like washing too much, and that could cause a problem too. Yes, teezer,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: tezer for what's to come? So fast forward to seventeen
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: sixty seven, when the first you know, modern equivalent of
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: the shower hit the market and was patented by a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: stove maker by the name of William Feetham from London Town.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I just want his name to be pronounced feet Ham, Sophie.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: Ham, yeah, or Ham feet you know whatever. And it
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: piggyback on a lot of this incredibly innovative technology, not
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: least of which is the humble basin, the humble vessel,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: the humble jug. Water was pumped into this basin above
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: a user's head before a chain was pulled. That would
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: basically it's like the remember the ice bucket challenge. Yeah,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: it's just getting dumped by a bucket of water dumped
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: on your head that you have a little bit of
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: control over it. So on a hinge, right, which is
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: so weird.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Because this guy also manufactured stoves, So why wouldn't he
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: figure out some warm or hot water process anyway?
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Isn't that funny? Yeahn't that funny? Ben? Sometimes the answers
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: right right under your nose and it takes somebody else
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: looking into the outside to figure that part out, which
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: we're gonna get to, Yes we are.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And by eighteen ten, well, obviously, just to summarize here, folks,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: that first modern shower had some serious disadvantages. It didn't
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have a way to purify water for what, and it
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: reused a lot of water growth. That's no, that's the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: opposite of cleaning yourself. That what's what they call wallowing
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: down filth? Yeah, a little bit of bathrot. By eighteen ten,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the English Regency shower is invented.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Now we go fancy.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: We don't know who invented this, but we know it
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: did offer the first hot shower of its kind for people.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And then in eighteen fifty, after the Greek and Roman
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: method of reliable plumbing was rediscovered, people looked around and said,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we don't have to reuse the same
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: dirty bath water and that's great. Yeah, I'm sorry. I
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: don't mean to put a gross image in anyone's head.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But if anybody has seen.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: The film Gummo, there's a very intense scene where there's
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: a kid eating a chocolate bar now eating spaghetti in
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: a in the filthiest bathwater you've ever seen. And then
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: he starts eating chocolate bar and he drops it in
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: the water and picks it uph Yeah, it is the
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: ick y'all cool movie. Arminy kurran very very not for everyone,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: but not for every interesting film. Early Chloe seven performing.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: A singular vision for sure. So all right, the thing is,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: as we mentioned, interest in personal cleanliness, or prioritization of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: personal cleanliness. It waxes and wings over over time. Now,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: if you've ever had to spend some time sleeping rough.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You know, no judgment, but you know that personal cleanliness
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: becomes its own job. And it may be surprising to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: realize that at certain points in Western Europe, and even
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: before the mid nineteen cent tree in the United States,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: people didn't really bathe for personal cleanliness. It might be
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a religious ritual if you're a knight right before a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: big fight or something, but it's washing of the feet
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of your apostles, for example, right right, So it had
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: more of a spiritual significance. But when it came to
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the average, you know, wake up at sunset and take
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: your shower kind of thing, a lot of Americans thought
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: it was unhealthy. They thought, you know, similar to that
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: coating on a chicken's egg. They thought that the dirt
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and grime they picked up in their day to day
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: lives was a protective layer, and that if they got
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: rid of the layer, they would expose their body to
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: unclean things the miasmas or diseased are as you mentioned earlier.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And for a long time, Americans associated the bathing of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the body with these bad stereotypes of stuck up Europeans
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: who were soft and opulent. Eventually, people start installing bathtubs
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in their homes. But this did not roll out at
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: a uniform pace, and a lot of working class people
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: living in tenements did not have access to running water
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: in cities. And being a person with some very rural
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: backgrounds in my past, I can assure us all that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: running water took a long time to get across the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: United States, and some people still don't have running water today,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: which is a crime shame.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: When you picture that, Ben, I did in my mind
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: think like so literally about the idea of how long
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: it would take to run water across the entire country.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: That would take a really long time. But yeah, in
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: terms of the evolution of it and the availability of it,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: you are absolutely correct. Hell man, it's a little bit
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: of an inexact science in certain houses to this day,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: I have a bit of an older house, and uh,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: you really got to keep on top of them pipes,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: man or else things because water, boy, oh boy, it's
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: great for a lot of things. But man, is it
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: insidious when it is not being your friend? Yeah? It
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: is also unstoppable and tenacious hundred percent water. Does it
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: take a nap? Yeah, it's crazy. It's like fire. I mean,
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I mean staying in the obvious there, but like how
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: how crucial it is for life, but how also deadly
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: and anti life. It can be drowning, floods, and you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: the decimation of entire homes, whether it be through storms
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: or just a slow leak that you're not aware of
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: that can cause rot and literally entirely damage the foundation
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: of one's home.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Dude, I don't want to sound too Buddhist on it's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: outside of the scope of this show, but think about it, folks.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: In a PvP, a one on one contest, a match
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: between stone and water, the water will always win if
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: there is not a time limit.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's the race. It's true. It's true. Tenacity is
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: it will always come out to if you've got time
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: and water has nothing but time.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Water's petty, That's what we're saying. Sure, anyway, we are
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: saying there's some great marketing. If you enjoyed our conversation
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: about hair dye earlier, Eel of Clock to Tour, shout
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: out to Edward Burne's marketing is a huge part of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: selling cleanliness to Americans in New York in eighteen ninety one,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: they're trying to sell the idea of a public bath
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a bath house, and so New Yorkers who visit this
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: public bathhouse are given a free bar or cake as
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: they called it, of Colgate soap as they're waiting in
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: line to go into this big communal bathhouse. And now
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: personal hygiene starts. The stereotypes flip once again. Now if
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: you are clean and reverend, you were seen as being
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: a good American. It even made it into the boy
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Scout oath for sure.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: And just like Loreal got it on the ground floor
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: with hair dye and then expanded their reach to all
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: aspects of beauty, Colgate did the very same thing. And
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: it all started with a humble cake of soap, a freebie,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the ultimate marketing maneuver, exactly.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so from this we see that around the
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, the US begins pushing the shower as an
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: idea in a wide social move, and they say, look,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you don't have to be a robber baron or a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: trained tycoon to get a shower. You know, you should
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: have a shower just to be a good clean American.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And the US then emerges as this sort of underdog,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: becoming a front runner in the world of normalizing cleanliness.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The UK is lacking behind folks. They don't start pushing
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: for showers on a wide scale until about the nineteen sixties.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: I find this insane, and that never occurred to me.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: It's so wild not to mention that wasn't really until
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: the eighties when the shower became like a must have.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: Let's insane. I just assume, you know what's funny though,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: I do recall a time as a little kid, namely
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: where I only took baths. Yeah, and then there came
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: a crossover point where I never really took a bath again.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: It was just all showers.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I think that happens to a lot of people, because
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: now a bath is especially in these are hurried times.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: A bath is seen more as a meditative event, you know.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: What I mean. Yeah, whale songs, candles.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe a nice book, some instrumental music.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So all right, Now we are in twenty twenty five,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: as we record on May twenty ninth year of Our Lord,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: it is considered in a central part of being a
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: modern person in the United States to bathe yourself, to
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: have a good hygiene regiment. Katherine Ashenberg points out nearly
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: one in four American houses built in two thousand and
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: five had three or more bathrooms. So twenty five percent
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of the homes built that year had three bathrooms or more.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of bathrooms. I don't object to it.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I am pro bathroom. I like that there are options.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: But this goes to something we mentioned earlier that I
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: think we should dive into right now. Take a dip
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in this. Folks, Americans now bathe so frequently that they
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: can cause themselves harm. This is coming to us from
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: our friends at the National Museum of American History. And
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: this reminds me of an episode our pals Josh Chuck
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: recorded way back in the day about the danger of
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: antibacterial soaps. Can you tell us what's going on with that?
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: For sure? I mean it's about antibiotic resistance, the idea
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: of superbugs as well. When we expose ourselves to this
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: anti biotic I guess, which is essentially what antibacterial soap is,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: we develop a resistance to it, especially if we use
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: it too much. And I do remember a time where
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: antibacterial soap was a selling point, and I do think
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: that that is not as much the case anymore. It
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: was specifically soaps containing the compound triclosan, which had become
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: so popular that some scientists were truly concerned this could
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: contribute to the aforementioned antibiotic resistance and the development of
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: superbugs antibiotic resistant viruses.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The pickle of it is that over using
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: type bacterial soap can it can decimate the good bacteria
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: that you need, and it can also at the same
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: time encourage, you know, that skyrocketing evolution of a superbug.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And that's why you have to be a little bit
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: careful about it. Doctors will warn you that there are
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: skin conditions that can be caused by the soaps we
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: used to wash our bodies and clothing. And I don't
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: experienced that too. It's not pretty. And here we are
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: going to pause. This turned out to be a two parter.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: We have it, maybe more than a two parter. We
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: haven't even gotten to hair gel, hairspray, history of deodorant,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the history of toothpaste, and brushing your teeth.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: We've got a wash malfloride skincare. I was gonna say,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: when we're talking about developing these resistance and cleaning off
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: things that you need. I recently went through a situation
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: where I was like you know what, I'm gonna start
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: washing my face. I've never been a face wash guy.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I've never had like a skincare routin love it and
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: the face wash that I picked, all of a sudden,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: it caused me to break out, and I've never broken
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: out in my life. I was sort of like, well,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I guess I should do this. So you do have
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: to kind of be careful and not wash your face
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: too much because you can wash off these certain oils
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: that you actually need on your skin to maintain a healthy,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: you know, biome. Kind of right, yeah, this is this
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: is true.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I'm laughing because I've been in those situations as well,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and it kind of reminds me of other non human
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: cleaning products where they tell like a fabric cleaner or
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: something that says, test this on a small area that's
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: cospicuous before you put it all over the floor.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and who does that? Does anybody else actually do that?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: I'm always just willy nilly, just let's go. I'm all in, right,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: this is my time for this.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I've been in some non ideal situations with that,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but we are in an ideal situation and right now, folks,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: we are going to call it a day. We're going
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to be back later in the near future where we're
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: going to explore some of the other aspects of the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: modern morning routine. We can't wait for you to tune in.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our research associate Jeff Factor G. Bartlett.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: And let's see who else? What do you think Jonathan
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Strickland ak the quizters morning routine.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Is like, huh, it's a good question. But polished his
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: dome perhaps?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Maybe wash himself in the tears of children. Oh yeah,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: that's tracks so big, thanks dude, Jonathan, of course, man,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: we're just messing with you. Who else know?
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Who else? Wills aj Bahamas Jacobs who I believe uses
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: the morning ritual that was very popular during the Revolutionary
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: War exclusively. You think he probably like bathes in like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: cold tars.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the one part of living constitutionally that he
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: just doing after that year.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: If it works, tried and true, Yeah, time on our tradition.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: If it works, it works, as you said, big thanks
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to the Rude Dudes of Ridiculous Crime. Do check out
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: their show. If you like us, you'll love them and Noel.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks to you, Man, I can't wait for us to
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: get into more of this stuff you need to.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.