This Photo of the Week* highlights what at first seems to be a perfectly ordinary horse-drawn carriage. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the team of six is not drawing a carriage, but rather a toilet.
Ronalds & Johnson Co. was founded in 1897, advertising itself as “manufacturers and jobbers” of “fine plumbing material.” An enormous Brooklyn showroom exhibited its porcelain varieties of bathtubs, sitz baths, toilets, and sinks, as well as iron, lead, and copper pipes, showers, taps, and faucets. It seems that sometime around 1905, Ronalds & Johnson Co. elected to take its showroom beyond the confines of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street. This photograph captures what appears to be a spectacular moment in mobile Victorian advertising, in which a mock bathroom is born upon a wagon or float and drawn through the streets by six horses. The fashionable bathroom of the day seems to have included a bathtub, toilet, and an exposed pipe shower, which possibly boasted multiple shower heads and knobs, as was then popular. Aboard the float ride two drivers in matching driving coats and caps, while a third gentleman stands in the bathroom itself. Emblazoned around the edges of the float are the words:
Ronalds & Johnson Co. Manufacturers
The [unclear] bathrooms in greater New York
Long Island, Brooklyn, New York
A crowd gathered around the float and horses, including a suspendered man leaning far out of a second-floor window, drawn in by the porcelain pomp and circumstance. Whatever the occasion, it seems Ronalds & Johnson Co. likely received the attention it sought and, perhaps, a boost in sales.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
*Please note that the photograph’s saturation and contrast levels have been edited for clarity.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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