Daily Bathing

[Mike Franklin]

I was reading 'Good Little Bad Man', the story of Colorado Charley Utter. It was noted that Charley had the habit, thought odd at the time, of bathing daily. (Supposedly crowds used to gather to watch Charley wash himself). I read the same about King Fisher. So anyway when did daily bathing become the norm? It's a habit I'm not only fond of but appreciate my close friends who do likewise.

[Marshall Trimble]

Good hygiene is a fairly recent thing. Off the top of my head, taking a daily bath is a mid-20th century thing. It was also something women were more prone to do than men. Usually, once a week was enough. Remember the term "Saturday night bath"?
Bathrooms with showers weren't as common earlier and one couldn't just walk into the bathroom and turn on the faucet and get hot water. It required heating the water and filling a wash tub. As a kid I took a lot of those and to be honest taking a bath was more trouble than it was worth.
How often a person bathed also depended on a number of things including availablility of water and the time of year....During cold weather one could go longer without a bath.
Shampoo didn’t come into use until the 1920s and soap was very hard on a woman’s hair so they seldom washed their tresses. In the real West a woman’s hair got washed about once a month and by then it was pretty oily and dirty. Only those buxom blondes in the Hollywood westerns had the luxury of having their hair washed with shampoo.
A few years ago I wrote a story titled "Saturday Night Baths," about the Mascot and Western Mining Company near Dos Cabezas, Arizona that imported several women from the company office back East. They created quite a bit of excitment among the male population as women were scarce as horseflies in December in those parts. The men decided to throw a dance on Saturday night and the eastern women did what they usually did before going out, they took baths.
Everyone had a good time and couldn't wait for next Saturday night to do it again. The next morning it was discovered the town had gone "dry," and they had to shut down the mine for a couple of days until the holding tanks filled again.
The local editor reflected on the matter and decided the company needed to hire an engineer who could figure out how to get more water, especially on Saturday night because it was more important to keep the women in good operating condition than the mine.

[Mike Franklin]

That's a funny story and once again shows that while gold is precious it ain't everything.

[Margaret-Anne Moore]

When I was in college in the 1960s, I had a class where one of my classmates was a retired Marine  Corps drill sergeant.  He noted that even at that late date, there were recruits who had to have it instilled into them that they did not go to bed without taking a shower!  He also stated that even in the early 1960s there were still places in this country where the Saturday Night Bath was the norm.  The census reports still note that there are still homes in this country that do not have indoor plumbling.  I read a book entitled Old House, New House, and learned that the bathroom as we know it today was not available in many areas until the 1920s.

[Mike Franklin]

I was talking to an Old Timer in San Antonio. He said that 'back then' when it rained all the men ran behind the barn, stripped and took a shower with the water running off the barn roof. I've done similar things myself when out in the back country.

[Marshall Trimble]

Good post Reb. I've read that same thing. I'm thinkin' there are some parts about the good old days that weren't so good.

Speaking of water, Mike, Back in the 1970s President Jimmy Carter was considering cutting off some water projects in the West. Straight-talkin' Senator Barry Goldwater told him, "Mr. President, there are three things Westerners will fight over, Water, Gold and Women......in that order."

[Mike Franklin]

"there are three things Westerners will fight over, Water, Gold and Women......in that order."

Throw in Whiskey and I'm in.

[steve bull]

talk about bathing, I asked my son the other week, if he was going to have a shower before we went to Pullman city, his reply was; No,it wouldnt be realistic if he did, as most cowboys stunk anyway. What more can you say.

[Wolfgang]

I was living in my cabin on the family property in Ohio during the winter of '73 - '74. Bathing was with a bucket of water on the weekend. Heat water on the wood burning stove. Dip water out of the barrel outside ( after breaking the ice ). Hot water mixed with the cold to the right temperature. Pour some on and soap up. Rinse with the rest. If not enough water for rinse, . . then dip more out of the barrel ( ice cold ) to finish rinsing. Run in side by the hot stove to towel off. Turning the tap to get hot and cold running water is nice, . . and I apprecieate it as the luxury that it is every time I take a shower these days. But bathing once a week with a bucket of water was great also.

[Christopher Zimmerman]

I read in "Forty Miles A Day on Beans and Hay" that the military forced recruits into the habit of bathing once per week in the 1880's. Apparently bathing weekly was not that common among the general population. Shaving was done two or three times a week unless you were in the field--then you just grew a beard.

I'm not sure when Americans started bathing daily. It seems to have been a gradual change that began after the First World War due to the increased availability of indoor plumbing and bathroom fixtures.

I do remember, however, that when I was living in Europe in the 1990's that some of the people there thought it odd and unhealthy that I bathed daily.

[Terry Boniface (Malpaso)]

In the early 1950s we had to pull the large tin bath that was usally stored outside in the yard into the front room because thats was the only room with a fire in it, and take a bath, myself and younger brother then stuggle to pull it out where we could empty it.
funny when you look back at things like that, you never knew that there was anything else

[Buck Grizzly]

Authentic smauthentic, nobody wants authentic aroma. People want to talk to you and get a photo or two.

　

Take a bath use deodorant soap, when milling through the public. We had an event where a guy did a character called catfish. He actually rubbed stink bait on his outer garments. Real stink bait not that plastic stuff they sale in the wallyworld. Three people threw up and it made for a terrible evening. Did he look the part, oh you bet. Was it necessary to go to that extreme? Really?

[Buck Grizzly]

Oh and some folks even today think that too many baths attacks your immune system, doesn't allow the oils in your skin to lubricate your skin enough to protect the skin against the natural elements etc... And there are some who believe it damages your hair to wash it daily.

　

Maybe we are supposed to have a little pungent odor about us and the way we mask it lets the undesirables get by to easy??? We humans have forgotten a lot about our common relationship/existence with nature, maybe for the bad in some cases? lol