U.S. Public Health Service Archives - New England Historical Society

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government built 2.3 million outhouses in rural America. They earned several nicknames, including the Roosevelt Outhouse, the Roosevelt Room, the White House, the Relief Office or simply the Eleanor. Some people excused themselves by saying they had to visit Miss Perkins, meaning Frances Perkins, FDR’s secretary of Labor.

The sanitary toilet program aimed to combat hookworm, typhoid fever, diarrhea and dysentery, especially prevalent in the rural South. A survey of 700 counties in 11 southern states found the presence of hookworm in every one of them. Soil pollution was the leading cause of hookworm, and unsanitary outhouses were a leading cause of soil pollution.

Educators and government officials from 1900 on tried to improve farm sanitation by promoting better privies. “Nothing is more important to the farmer than good health. Good health cannot be preserved if the sanitary conditions of the farm are bad,” wrote Agriculture Secretary James Wilson in 1911 in the introduction to the USDA Farmers Bulletin 463 – The Sanitary Privy.

An image that appeared in a number of government publications.

Then in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered 1 million sanitary privies built. In the end, the WPA and other agencies more than doubled that number to 2,309,239. Today, people who own a Roosevelt Outhouse proudly describe their iconic outbuilding to local reporters or on real estate listings. But they’re mostly in the South and the Midwest. Which raises the question: Did anyone build a Roosevelt Outhouse in New England?

Yes they did.

Evolution of the Roosevelt Outhouse

In 1909, the Rockefeller Foundation made public health a priority, and undertook a hookworm study from 1909 to 1915. It found that unsanitary privies caused hookworm infections, which led to diarrhea, stomach ache and anemia. The study concluded that outhouse pits had to be at least six feet deep to prevent hookworms from making contact with humans.

The U.S. Public Health Service began to work with state governments to distribute plans for sanitary privies during World War I and the 1920s. Then the country fell into the Great Depression, and few people could afford to build a new outhouse.

The Civil Works Administration formed in 1933 as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and began building sanitary outhouses. Property owners supplied the wood and other materials, while the CWA provided the labor. However, the agency discovered wooden floors were hard to clean and rotted quickly.

The Works Progress Administration picked up the privy project with an improved design. It had a concrete vault below ground, which served as the foundation for the structure. The pot had a square hole and a wooden seat with a lid that closed so tight flies couldn’t get in. The concrete vault also had a ventilation shaft with screens to keep out flies.

Families had a choice of a one-holer or a two-holer. The two-holer had a smaller seat for children who might otherwise fall in.

A concrete outhouse base. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

The concrete and lids were mass produced in central locations. WPA employees then went to work building Roosevelt Outhouses for homes, schools, dairies, filling stations and tourist camps.

Sanitary pre-cast concrete bases or the Roosevelt Outhouse after stripping of forms, Image courtesy Library of Congress.

How To Build a Roosevelt Outhouse

It took three-man WPA teams 20 hours, or three days, to build one. The labor was again free, but a family had to pay for the materials if it could afford it. For $17, a farm family could buy the materials for an outhouse.

Loading completed privy houses on truck for delivery to site in 1938. Courtesy Library of Congress.

The sanitary toilet project was one of the few that built a structure on private property. The WPA justified the private improvements as necessary for public health. The Roosevelt Outhouses did reduce the incidence of hookworm.

Where To Find a Roosevelt Outhouse

Roosevelt Outhouses still stand in places throughout the county.

Beckley, W. Va., has an exhibition coal mine that features a Roosevelt Outhouse. The concrete base has “1939” and “WPA” written in the concrete.
The Case-Barlow Farm in Hudson, Ohio, has an outhouse with a concrete base, probably a Roosevelt Outhouse.
In Atchison County, Kans., a couple enjoys owning an Eleanor outhouse, according to Capper’s Farmer.

Fitting vent stack and seat cover to sanitary base of privy. Courtesy Library of Congress.

A real estate listing for a 150-year-old farmhouse in Indianapolis boasts of charm, woodwork, soaring ceilings and “a Roosevelt Outhouse!”

New England certainly had its share of outhouses. The 1940 Census showed 29 percent of homes in Vermont and 25 percent in New Hampshire did not have flush toilets.

So where might one find a Roosevelt Outhouse in New England?

Probably in Albany, N.H., at the Blackberry Crossing Campground. According to the Living New Deal website,

Blackberry Crossing is unique in that it was a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp during the 1930’s. There is a self-guided tour of the old camp within the campground. The campground has 26 sites that are available on a first come, first served basis. There are hand pumps for water and vault toilets. A short walk from the campground is the Albany Covered Bridge, The Nanamocomuck Ski Trail, and the Boulder Loop hiking trail.

“Vault toilet” is another name for a Roosevelt Outhouse.

Some Historic Outhouses

In the search for a Roosevelt Outhouse, we came across several other historic privies.

The outhouse behind the Silas Deane house. Photo courtesy the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.

Connecticut has several in Wethersfield at The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, which features a fancy six-holer outhouse where George Washington may have sat.

The 1938 New England Hurricane upended the outhouse at the Israel Putnam farm, and no one seems to have restored it. The National Register of Historic Places nomination form for the farm makes no mention of an outhouse. The Putnam Cottage (or Knapp Tavern) in Greenwich, however, does have a reproduction privy.

Israel Putnam’s privy after the 1938 hurricane

In Boston, archaeologists dug up an outhouse that Paul Revere may have used.

This story was updated in 2023.

Frances Splettscher was the first of the Waterbury radium girls to die. In 1921 at the age of 17, she had gone to work for the Waterbury Clock Co., painting watch dials with the new miracle substance, radium.

To get a nice, sharp point on her paintbrush, Frances, like the other radium girls, put the brush to her lips to get a nice, sharp point, dipped it into the paint and painted the dial. Then she did it again, over and over, for eight cents a dial.

The radium girls’ ailments mimicked a condition called phossy jaw

The radium girls didn’t think radium carried any danger. The company told them it would give them glowing health. Wasn’t radium used to cure people?

The radium girls believed their supervisors. They painted their dress buttons with it and their fingernails, and they painted rings on their fingers.

In 1925, Frances Splettscher died of radium poisoning after an agonizing illness. She developed severe anemia, and her teeth hurt. When a dentist pulled a tooth, part of her jaw came with it. Her mouth rotted until she had a hole in her check.

She was one of hundreds of young immigrant women hired to paint luminous paint onto the popular new watch dials in Connecticut – in Waterbury, Bristol, Thomaston and New Haven – and in Orange, N.J., and in Ottawa, Ill. She was also one of dozens who died from radium poisoning.

Radium Girls

In 1920, Katherine Schaub had come to train the radium girls at the Connecticut watch studios, including the Waterbury Clock Co. She had worked as a dial painter in Orange, N.J., at the United States Radium Corporation (USRC).

Katherine later contracted radium poisoning and, with four other dial painters, sued USRC. The company settled out of court, but Katharine died at the age of 30 after suffering excruciating pain.

Waterbury Clock Co.

In 1923, U.S. Public Health Service said radium workers should take precautions. The radium girls in Waterbury knew nothing of it. A company doctor named Frederick Flinn examined them and reassured them they were fine.

What they didn’t know was that Flinn was a fraud who found a career covering up for companies that killed their workers with radium poisoning. He hadn’t gone to medical school; he had just acquired a PhD. That didn’t stop him from taking blood, reading x-rays and ordering medical treatment.

Frederick Flinn helped USRC fight the charges brought by Katherine Schaub and the other radium girls. He also worked with Waterbury Clock to sweep the radium poisoning under the rug.

Frederick Flinn

Radium girls at work.

Flinn had approached Waterbury Clock Co. offering to examine the dial painters for free. By 1925, the year Frances Splettscher died, the company hired him.

That same year Elizabeth Dunn tripped slightly on a dance floor and suffered a spontaneous fracture of her leg. The radium had eaten into her bones, riddling them with holes. She developed the same jaw necrosis that felled Frances Splettscher. Elizabeth Dunn died in 1927.

At least by then Waterbury Clock Co. had warned the radium girls not to put their paintbrushes into their mouths.

Under the Rug

By the summer of 1926, Frederick Flinn found two cases of radium poisoning at Waterbury Clock. He continued to tell the radium girls they were perfectly healthy. He told Katherine Moore eight times she didn’t have a trace of radium in her body. She died from radium poisoning.

A radium dial.

In December 1926, Flinn published an article in a medical journal concluding, ‘An industrial hazard does not exist in the painting of luminous dials.’

Not until 1928 did Frederick Flinn find five girls who might have radium poisoning.

Flinn pretended concern. He convinced the radium girls to accept company settlements that freed it from further liability. With no lawyers representing them, the young, unsophisticated radium girls had no hope of justice.

Between 1926 and 1936, Waterbury Clock quietly paid out $90,000 for settlement, support and medical costs for 16 radium girls. One family received a paltry $43.75 as compensation for the death of their radium girl.

USRC

Meanwhile, radium girls were getting sick and dying in New Jersey. Five of them, including Katherinie Schaub, brought suit against USRC. Their lawyer tried to prove their horrific diseases resulted from occupational hazards associated with radium dial painting.

Alice Hamilton

A Harvard professor named Alice Hamilton tried to help. She had identified the occupational dangers of the Danbury hat factories, and she heard about the Waterbury girls. She told the New Jersey lawyer to look into the Waterbury Clock Co. cases.

In 1927 the lawyer wrote to the workmen’s comp commission in Connecticut. They hadn’t heard anything about it. “No claims have been filed with me. I have heard a number of rumors such as you have, but know nothing about them,“ wrote the commissioner.

USRC argued in court that no other cases of radium poisoning existed.

Aftermath

The New Jersey radium girls did win a settlement, but USRC managed to wriggle out of further liability. Waterbury Clock also wangled a change in Connecticut’s workmen’s compensation law, shortening the statute of limitations to three years from five.

In 2014, May Keane, the last of the radium girls, died in Middlebury, Conn., at 107. She had only worked as a dial painter at Waterbury Clock for a few months, which probably extended her life. However she lost all her teeth and suffered from colon cancer and breast cancer.

If you enjoyed this story, you may also want to read about child labor here. With thanks to The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore. This story was updated in 2023.

Images: Waterbury Clock by By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68158102. Radium dial by By Arma95 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9502836.

U.S. Public Health Service

In Search of the Roosevelt Outhouse in New England