Baths and Bathtubs?

[Joyce (AnnieLee)]

Assuming that most places back then didn't have indoor plumbing, just how did the bath houses operate?

Did those clawfoot tubs have drains? If they did, where was the water taken? If not how where the tubs emptied and did the next person in line get clean water, or someone else's filth?

Did the folks really take baths in deep water as shown in movies such as "Maverick"? In such movies, I've seen the water usually warmed by a lass carrying a tea kettle. That doesn't seem very practical to me. How was the water carried to fill the tubs and then to warm the water when it cooled?

Would they half fill the tub with regular water, then add very hot water to bring it to a bathing/washing/soaking temperature?

Wouldn't they have to have some kind of fireplace in a room on the ground floor for the sole purpose of continually heating water for the tubs?

Having had to heat water for washing on a stove, I've been wondering about these things for a while.

Thanks for your input,

AnnieLee

[Ol Gabe]

Well, now, Annie, you jogged this old brain into a journey down Memory Lane' and I'm sure you'll get some better answers but these may help out a bit.
As a child growing up on a hilly farm near a river in eastern Iowa, we did it all the only way we could in the late '40s and '50s. There was no electricity at our end of the dirt road til the mid-'60s so we used Coleman lanterns for the house and chores, milking and suchlike. We had an outhouse and used washed cornhusks since no TP was unavailabe. Our well pump was driven by wind and a hand-operated handle when needed, water was run through pipes for the livestock to the barn and feedlot. Wood was cut by hand ax and a tractor-mounted saw in the timber for the big heating stove and cobs from the corn grown on the farm were used for the kitchen stove.
Sooooooo, bathtime was on, you guessed it, Saturday night after chores and before a late supper. The kids would bring in an extra bucket of cobs, Mom would get the supper fire going in the kitchen stove and boil up water in the big canning pan. When at full boil, she would dump part of it into the huge oblong iron tub we had on the porch, the one we used  for scalding chickens and hogs. It was already half full of cold water, hand-pumped from the well and cold as, well, cold as well water can be in the Winter. The boiling water made it jist about right to crawl in and get clean, the youngest kid first then on up the ladder til dad got his dip, adding the last of the boiling water to the sudsy 'brown' fluid. Was it dirty? You bet! Did it get us clean, more or less, we used Lye soap and it'll clean anything!
Now, this was in the late Fall, Winter and early Spring months when we couldn't shower and get cleaned up outside where we had a bucket with a spiget valve mounted on the side of the pumphouse, we'd fill it in the morning and by choretime it would be about tea-warm, we'd get wet, lather up with the Lye soup then rinse with a pail of cooool water, Boy, Howdy! What a way to tighten up them wrinkles!
OK, now the oldsters in the family always regaled us with tales about the 'good ol' days' on the prairie when water for a bath was non-existent, it was saved for drinking only! When available, they shared a pail or used the nearest stream or bucket of rain water, slime and all. If they had to go to the big city for a funeral or on a once-a-year buying spree after the crops were in and the bills paid, they would stay in a hotel and luxuriate in the 'bath-house'. Their stories support what we now see and read in historical tomes where the guys took turns in a huge wooden tub, hot water being added every time the next guy got in and the floor got swamped to get the cow and horse 'stuff' out of the way. After their 'bath' they would get a shave, haircut and a splash of smelly stuff along with a cigar. Everything was added-in on the hotel bill. Ladies got clean hot water and Lilac Water to add to it along with clean towels or a cotton flannel blanket-robe to dry off in. The 'bath house' was said to have been outside and behind the hotel next to an outhouse, all the swamped water and 'stuff' as well old dirty water was drained though the bung plug at the bottom of the wood tub and it went down and out through the cracks in the floor, working its way to the open sewer trenches alongside the building and street.
Now, this is what I recall from the stories the oldsters told about the late 1800's and the visits to a hotel in Marshalltown, Iowa, the place is long gone now, urban renewal I suppose, but they said it was downtown near the present day courthouse square. No doubt others will comment on similar setups and procedures.
Since the standards for personal hygeine in the 1800's suggested a bath every so often, the dirty water was probably taken at taw, that was the way it was, so there!
Hope this helps explain it a bit and put you at ease the next time someone asks if you want to take a bath out behind the barn, jist remember to ask for Lilac Water, a cotton flannel robe and a cigar first!
Best regards and good soaking!
'Ol Gabe

[Silver Creek Slim]

Great info, 'Ol Gabe.

Slim