Clawfoot Tub History

Despite claims to the contrary, the clawfoot tub was not invented by the pre-Greek Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. However, the Minoan civilization was the first to use underground pipes for sanitation and water supply. They enjoyed indoor plumbing via terracotta pipes, and took baths in freestanding pedestal tubs.

Minoan tubs were often used for both bathing and burial. A Minoan tub-style coffin is known as a larnax. A good example of a late Minoan (mid-14th century BC) bathtub larnax can be seen online at Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum. It was 3,200 years later and half a world away that clawfoot tubs entered the history books. 19th-Century Clawfoot Tubs According to home improvement guru Bob Vila, claw foot tubs were around in the 1850s and 1860s. But these weren't the porcelain-finished cast iron models that are known and loved today. The earliest clawfoot bathtubs were often made from tin. Nicer tubs were made of copper with an oak rim.

Porcelain and cast iron were first used in the construction of a claw foot tub around 1873 (previously, tub interiors were painted); these tubs were produced by the J.L. Mott Iron Works Company. However, invention of the clawfoot bathtub is often jointly attributed to the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company (which later became American Standard) and Kohler.

The Kohler Connection
The story of how John Kohler invented the cast iron clawfoot tub is definitely the most colorful origins tale. Born in Austria, from which he emigrated to the U.S. as a child, Kohler became co-owner of an iron and steel foundry in Wisconsin in 1873. The foundry produced items such as farm equipment, cemetery crosses, and porch railings.

In 1883, either on his own initiative or at the request of a local farmer, Kohler enameled the interior of one of the foundry-produced iron tubs used as hog scalders. (Hog scalding was a process in which dead hogs were immersed in boiling water so that their hair could be scraped off.) The converted hog tub was traded to the farmer for a cow and 14 chickens. Kohler went on to mass produce cast iron clawfoot tubs, advertising them unpretentiously as a "horse trough/hog scalder, [which] when furnished with four legs will serve as a bathtub." A wooden trim was optional.

Put Your Clawfoot In, Take Your Clawfoot Out
Though commonly regarded as the epitome of the Victorian bathroom, the clawfoot bathtub's heyday lasted from about 1885 to 1930, with its popularity peaking between 1910 and 1920. The clawfoot bathtubs of that era were commonly made from enameled cast iron and featured a rolled rim. According to the book Bungalow Bathrooms by Jane Powell and Linda Svendsen, some Victorian-era clawfoots even had shower enclosures, e.g., wood-paneled rounded hoods or shower rings with curtains.

But the end was near for clawfoots when the double-wall tub was introduced in 1911. Clawfoot tubs were gradually replaced with built-ins and Art Deco pedestal tubs during the 1920s, which eliminated the need for mopping and cleaning beneath the tub - a problem compounded by the general absence of indoor plumbing.

The clawfoot was little missed, judging by a 1932 government report produced in association with a conference on home building and home ownership called by President Herbert Hoover: "The free-standing tub is well-nigh extinct, for which the American housewife is truly grateful. It was a great dirt catcher and it was a very conscientious person who ever thoroughly cleaned the floor under the tub... The appearance of the tub was ugly and helped to make a homely room homelier."

Today, in an era when clawfoots have become synonymous with long, luxurious baths, such words sound almost blasphemous. Spacious, beautiful, and nostalgic, clawfoot tubs are an ideal match for our contemporary conflation of bathing and relaxation. From lightweight and affordable acrylic clawfoot tubs to classic cast iron and porcelain enamel, vintage luxury lives on at ClawfootTubs.com.