Part 15

Provisions for free public baths were made in New York in 1870 by the erection of two floating baths. These bath houses, however, could only be used during warm weather, so could not be considered, in the full sense of the word, bathing establishments. The New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, realizing this and the lack of public bathing facilities, undertook to supply the deficiency as far as possible, and in 1891 opened the first real public bath house in the United States, at 9 Centre Market Place. Yonkers, N. Y., however, claims the credit of being the first city in the United States to establish a municipal bath house, supplied with hot and cold water, open all the year round, and maintained at the public expense.

The example set by a few cities has not been without effect, and other cities in the United States have followed the lead. It is noticeable, however, that it is only in the Eastern cities that public bath houses are built and maintained at the city's expense. According to the "Report on Public Baths and Comfort Stations," Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, Newark and Trenton each have one public bath house and Chicago has three. Since the publication of that report, however, many cities both in the East and in the West have built public bath houses and many have built, are building, or have planned to build, public comfort stations. Indeed, the standard by which the advancement of cities will be judged in the near future is, "What have they done for the comfort and welfare of the citizens?" And among the visible evidences of what they have done, standing foremost will be the public bath houses, public comfort stations, and last, but not least, public wash houses.

Events of to-day become history of to-morrow, and no history would be complete without recounting contemporaneous facts and events. So it is with sanitation; no history of that subject would be complete without illustrating a few of the plumbing fixtures in use at the time the record was written. We of the present age believe, as did those of a generation ago, that we have almost attained perfection in the manufacture of plumbing fixtures; but have we, or will succeeding generations look back upon what we consider good as we do upon the fixtures in vogue in the early 70's? This we do not know nor can we foresee. Time alone will tell.

FOOTNOTES:

Ewbank's Hydraulics.

Engineering Record, Oct. 21, 1905

Wanklyn and Cooper.

Water Supply.

Principles of Sanitary Science and the Public Health.

The complete original report is entitled "Report on the Cholera Outbreak in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, during the Autumn of 1854. Presented to the Vestry by the Cholera Inquiry Committee, July, 1855. London, J. Churchill, 1855."

Typhoid Fever, its Nature, Mode of Spreading and Prevention.

Sixth Report, London, 1874.

Cholera Prospects and Prevention.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Minor punctuation and printer errors repaired.

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