1860 - 1880 Child's Bathtub

This tub is similar in shape and size to those advertised for a child’s use in the 1869 Dover Stamping Company’s catalog. Mid to later–19th century advice books encouraged more frequent bathing for children.

Julia McNair Wright’s 1879 Complete Home: An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Life and Affairs recommended “If you want your child to be vigorous in play and exercise, give it an abundance of baths: bathe it every day, using warm or cold water—never hot, never freezing, but warm or cold water as best agrees with your child’s constitution.”* Parents likely bathed their children in the kitchen near the warmth of the fire and near a ready source of heated water. The Saturday night bath became a ritual in many households.

For more information on bathing and bathtubs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, please see the introduction to this online exhibition.

*Julia McNair Wright, Complete Home: An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Life and Affairs, (Philadelphia, Pa.: J. C. McCurdy & Co., [1879]), 136.

Currently not on view