Past Perfect

Go with the flow.

By Gordon Bock

Were there bathrooms before there was plumbing? Maybe in the marble and tile caldariums of ancient Rome, but probably not in North America. Though folks have been washing and bathing in and out of houses for centuries, it took the increased availability of piped-in water after 1850 to tether bathtubs and wash basins-formerly portable pieces of furniture-to a fixed location: the bathroom. Faucets, spigots, valves, and their newer cousins, showers, are the working hearts of the modern bathroom and have evolved stylistically and mechanically along with the fixtures they service. Nonetheless, there isn't a lot in print on how these devices have changed. To help fill the gap, here's a quick stylistic rundown of key faucet and fixture landmarks from the 1880s to the 1930s for anyone interested in fitting out their old-house bathroom in step with its era.

Levers and Handles
Though early plumbingware engineers devised many ingenious types of cocks and spigots, such as Doherty self-closing faucets, generally the residential plumbing world before 1930 falls into two camps: those operated with levers and those with cross handles. Assumptions about old houses are always prone to exceptions, but generally lever-handled faucets are among the earliest types and very common right up to the end of the 19th century because they are practical for Fuller ball valves, one of the earliest popular designs (see sidebar on this page). Fuller-style levers are commonly the same metal or plating as the faucet body, but high-end models were also made with decorative inserts, such as ebony or porcelain. Levers lived on after the heyday of the Fuller ball valve in metal or even crystal versions for compression faucets.

Cross handles are by nature associated with compression valves and appear more regularly from the 1890s on. This decade saw great mechanical improvements in plumbing equipment and fixture manufacturing, coupled with the growing popularity of bathrooms in general. Enclosed cabinetwork around lavatories and tubs started to disappear in favor of exposed or open plumbing that was more attractive through the use of brass piping and decorative fittings, as well as less prone to leaks. The typical cross-handle valve had four arms on the cross, but there was also a fashion for a five-arm star version, especially for fancy faucets.

Incidentally, one of the longest running designs for a lavatory was simply a slab of marble cut with an oval hole to accept a porcelain or enameled iron bowl fitted from below. These lavatories were typically equipped with a pair of faucets with individual discharges-Fuller ball types at first, then cross-handled compression faucets. This basic lavatory appeared in the 1880s atop cabinets similar to washstands. By 1910 it was still common but now supported on wall-hung iron brackets to eliminate any dark, damp spaces that might breed unsanitary microbes.

Metals and Finishes
While much supply and waste plumbing well into this century was made with iron and lead (plumbing'' stems from plumbum, Latin for lead) the mechanical requirements of water controls have always favored brass and bronze. Naked brass appeared as a faucet finish throughout the 19th century and into the 1910s, especially for economical fixtures. Durable as it is, though, brass takes constant maintenance to stay shiny, especially around water, and plated finishes became the next logical improvement. Nickel in both polished and brushed forms was the metal for bright work in stoves and bathrooms alike, and it was a regular option for faucets from the 1880s into the 1930s.

As new understanding of germs and disease gave rise to the Sanitary Movement around 1900, manufacturers joined the crusade for cleanliness with advances in porcelain-enameled iron bathtubs and sinks-all antiseptically white, of course. Porcelain faucet handles fit hand-in-glove, so to speak, with this new look, and were most often seen in four-arm cross handles. Chromium, the ubiquitous shiny metal of today, did not come into wide use until 1930, but when it did nickel quickly became passŽ. Shortly thereafter, chrome plating was joined in catalogs by gold-plated and even silver-plated faucets, all intended to complement the new explosion of colors that by then had taken over bathroom fixtures and tiled surfaces both.

Combination Faucets and Controls
It's surprising to think about today, but historic bathrooms clearly show that combination faucets that merge hot water and cold water valves into a single casting (or at least a central discharge) were all but non-existent in residential lavatories until the 1920s. However, this was not due to any difficulty in making such a fitting. Simple Fuller ball combination faucets that mixed the two water temperatures were common on bathtubs by the 1890s. Moreover, sophisticated versions for specialized uses, such as shampoo basins, were on the market in 1900. The reasons for this reluctance are obscure, but literature suggests that even at the dawn of the 20th century most bathers still filled their sinks like bowls to shave or wash, rather than letting the tap run. Nonetheless, by the 1930s the two-faucet lavatory appears in only the smallest models, and mixers were everywhere.

Showers follow a similar but more understandable history. Cage showers and needle baths, among the earliest showerlike contraptions, started to appear in the late 1890s. These were actually intended for invigorating health treatments, rather than mere daily cleansing, and scientific modulating of water temperature (not to mention pressure and location) was an important concern. With this end in mind, these showers were often fed by a large metal mixing chamber designed to improve the blending of hot and cold water controlled by two or more compression valves.

After World War I, the residential shower quickly took on a more familiar form, especially when combined with a built-in bathtub in the standard 5'-wide bathroom of the 1920s. These showers were typically controlled by a pair of cross-handled valves separate from the pair servicing the tub. An alternate approach that slightly reduced the number of controls was to install lever-handled equipment that could switch the water from tub to shower. Taking this idea a step further, manufacturers debuted the first generation of single-handle shower controls in the mid-1920s. By rotating a large lever, these devices controlled both hot and cold water with a single valve.

Showers and Discharge Tubes
Speaking of showers, the heads or sprays that discharge the water went though their own metamorphosis. Among the non-therapeutic types used for bathing at the turn of the century were rain shower heads. These sizable spun metal fittings incorporated a perforated disc several inches in diameter that was designed to release large droplets of water that simulated rain. Regular shower heads were even larger and often decorated with pierced metal bands and spiraled supply pipes. By the mid-1920s, shower heads had become smaller, smoother, and more utilitarian in appearance, much the same as the bathrooms they inhabited.

Popular today due to their graceful period charm and straightforward practicality, gooseneck or swan's neck discharge tubes date to the earliest days of residential plumbing. The height and generous spread of the tubes (6 and 8 are common dimensions) are designed to allow the user to place large objects under the spout. They were common in butler's pantries and kitchens for filling and washing pots but also found their way onto bathtubs and lavatories for washing hair, especially when fitted with a flexible spray head.

Faucet Fundamentals
No less than now, the mechanical design that allowed a faucet (also called a cock or bibb) to function a century ago had a strong influence on its form.

Fuller ball valves-Fuller valves became one of the first widely popular faucets for residential sinks because the valve was a relatively simple mechanism to manufacture. In this design, the lever handle is attached to a stem that is bent in an offset similar to a small crankshaft. By rotating the lever, the user moves a conical soft-rubber disc either against or away from a metal seat, thereby controlling the water. The Fuller valve was quick acting, taking only a half-turn flip of the lever to close or open. Nonetheless, Fuller valves started to die out in the 1920s because the rubber ball needed regular maintenance and water flow was hard to regulate.

Compression valves-Always more sophisticated than Fuller valves, compression valves were in use by the 1890s and common a decade later. In the compression valve, the cross (or sometimes lever) handle controls a stem that threads down into the valve body. Rotating the stem two or so turns then moves a hard-rubber disc against a metal seat, closing off an orifice in the valve body and thereby controlling the flow of water. Designed for frequent use and variable water flow, the basic compression valve remains the nearly universal faucet type in houses today.



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