The Power of the Water System : Towards a Global History of the Water Closet

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Abstract

The water closet is a modern essential. Cities all over the world seek to provide people with a private restroom that is connected to an underground sewer system. But while water closets are taken for granted, they hinge on a complex technological system that required enormous investments, particularly for underground water pipes and sewers and wastewater disposal. This essay identifies the roots of this global technology in decisions during the second half of the nineteenth century. The first part traces the divergent interests of a broad range of stakeholders. City dwellers, sanitary experts and sewermen, engineers and inventors, state authorities and agriculturalists held different views of wastewater problems that were at odds in significant respects. The second part traces the way how these divergent interests were negotiated, arguing that it was a process of subsequent exclusion rather than negotiation and the gradual development of a compromise. In this way, the rise of the water closet as a self-evident sanitary requirement marks the hegemony of the city in modernity as well as the victory of sanitary and engineering interests at the expense of rural interests. It also turned the water closet into a mode of distinction, as access varied and continues to vary depending on gender and social status.

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