It's amazing how often we get some variation of the questions, "When was toilet paper invented?", "Who invented toilet paper?", and "What did people use before toilet paper was invented?" Here are a few of the highlights in the evolution of toilet paper that we've compiled from various sources. Some links to more comprehensive articles follow.

• What did people use before toilet paper? Well, just use your imagination: grass, leaves, fur, mussell shells, corncobs, stinging nettles... okay, maybe not that last, at least not more than once. The ancient Greeks used stones and pieces of clay; ancient Romans used sponges on the ends of sticks, kept in jugs filled with salty water. Mideasterners commonly used the left hand, which is supposedly still considered unclean in the Arabian region.
• "Official" toilet paper - that is, paper which was produced specifically for the purpose - dates back at least to the late 14th Century, when Chinese emperors ordered it in 2-foot x 3-foot sheets.
• Corncobs and pages torn from newspapers and magazines were commonly used in the early American West. The Sears catalogue was well-known in this context, and even produced such humorous spinoffs as the "Rears and Sorebutt" catalogue. The Farmer's Almanac had a hole in it so it could be hung on a hook and the pages torn off easily.
• Joseph C. Gayetty of New York started producing the first packaged toilet paper in the U.S. in 1857. It consisted of pre-moistened flat sheets medicated with aloe and was named "Gayetty’s Medicated Paper". Gayetty's name was printed on every sheet.
• Rolled and perforated toilet paper as we're familiar with today was invented around 1880. Various sources attribute it to the Albany Perforated Wrapping (A.P.W.) Paper Company in 1877, and to the Scott Paper company in 1879 or 1890. On a side note, the Scott Company was too embarrassed to put their name on their product, as the concept of toilet paper was a sensitive subject at the time, so they customized it for their customers... hence the Waldorf Hotel became a big name in toilet paper.
   
  Here's an 1886 Albany Perforated Wrapping (A.P.W.) Paper Company ad for perforated, medicated, rolled toilet paper.
   
• In 1935, Northern Tissue advertised "splinter-free" toilet paper. Yep, you read that right; early paper production techniques sometimes left splinters embedded in the paper. And you thought you had it tough!
• In 1942, St. Andrew's Paper Mill in Great Britain introduced two-ply toilet paper
• Amnerica experienced its first toilet paper shortage in 1973.
• The Virtual Toilet Paper Museum opened its virtual doors in 1999.

Here are the more comprehensive articles we promised you. They will open in new browser windows.

• The Wolf Files on abcnews.com
• Toilet Paper World
• Plumbing, Bath & Toilet History on inventors.about.com
• History on a Roll by Don Rittner
• Toilet Paper - Mentioning The Unmentionable
• Wikipedia
• The History of Toilet Paper presented by Patrick A. Tollefsrud
• Quilted Northern's Toilet Tissue through the Centuries
• Russia Makes it Funny: Brief Insight in the History of the Most Delicate Paper

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