This week, we celebrate Presidents’ Day, a federal holiday established in 1879 to commemorate the birthday of our nation’s first president, George Washington. Originally celebrated on February 22, Washington’s Birthday (as it was — and still is — officially named) was moved in 1970 to the third Monday in February to allow federal employees a three-day weekend. Since many states had also been observing Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12, the two were combined. Eventually, the holiday evolved into a general celebration of not only those two great leaders but all U.S. presidents.
As we pondered the beginnings of Presidents’ Day, it got us wondering about drinking water treatment and sanitation during George Washington’s lifetime. Spoiler alert: there really wasn’t any — at least not as we know it today.
George Washington was born in 1732 and, in those days, the understanding of waterborne diseases was extremely limited. Outbreaks of typhoid fever, cholera, and other diseases were quite common, particularly in more populated areas.
Although folks didn’t understand exactly why, it was generally accepted that drinking surface water was a risky endeavor. Methods of water purification such as sand filtration and boiling had been around since ancient times, but they weren’t done in any organized fashion.
Those with access to spring-fed sources or wells were fortunate to have a relatively clean water supply, but the general consensus of the time was that it was much safer to drink alcohol; whisky, beer, and hard cider were household staples. Even children drank “ciderkin,” a less potent version of hard cider.
As for sanitation, privies or outhouses could be found in some settlements but in populated areas, open ditches or trenches were often used to convey both domestic and industrial waste directly to a nearby river or stream (hence the reason drinking surface water was understandably avoided).
Benjamin Franklin, sometimes referred to as America’s first environmentalist, recognized the importance of clean water and, in 1739, led a petition asking the Pennsylvania Assembly to put a stop to the dumping of tannery waste into public water sources. They won, but with little being done to enforce compliance, the dumping continued.
By the 1770s, European countries like Scotland, England, and France began experimenting with slow sand filtration and chemical (alum) treatment, and early designs for the “water closet” had been patented. But here in America, it would be decades before any meaningful progress in drinking water or wastewater treatment would emerge.
In 1799, the first large-scale drinking water supply system was constructed in Philadelphia, after a devastating outbreak of yellow fever killed 5,000 — about 10 percent of the city’s population — in 1793. By 1802, the Centre Square pumping station was delivering 400,000 gallons per day and the occurrence of yellow fever had dramatically diminished.
Over the next century, incremental progress in drinking water treatment and sanitation was made, with municipal waterworks being established in other metropolitan areas like Boston, New York City, and Chicago. But perhaps the most significant catalyst for future advancement was the growing awareness of the link between clean water and public health.
In 1854, a terrible outbreak of cholera plagued London. Physician John Snow discovered that sewage-contaminated water was the cause of the disease, not “bad air” as was the conventional wisdom of the time. Fifty years later, in 1908, American physician John L. Leal introduced chlorine as a method for killing waterborne pathogens and, in an effort to improve public health and address the impacts of deadly diseases like typhoid, Jersey City, New Jersey, was the first water system in the United States to use chlorine for disinfection.
That marked the beginning of a new age for drinking water and wastewater treatment technology in the 20th century, followed by such important advances as activated sludge processes, membranes, ultraviolet disinfection, desalination, and biological nutrient removal.
Along the way, several U.S. presidents contributed to environmental progress, including Theodore Roosevelt, who established the national park system to conserve natural resources; and Richard Nixon, who signed into law the Clean Water Act and established the Environmental Protection Agency.
This Presidents’ Day, in addition to commemorating the leadership of George Washington and the 45 presidents who succeeded him, let’s also recognize and appreciate how far we’ve come in our water and sanitation journey over the past 250 years.
Further Reading
“The History of Drinking Water Treatment,” U.S. EPA Office of Water, February 2000.
Enzler, S.M. “History of Water Treatment: Significant historical events forming the basis for today’s water treatment systems,” Lenntech.
“How Alcohol Founded America,” MYSA.
Cargill, Amanda. “What Did the Founding Fathers Eat and Drink as They Started a Revolution?” Smithsonian Magazine, July 3, 2018.
Nielsen, Larry. “Benjamin Franklin, America’s First Environmentalist, Born (1706),” Today in Conservation – January 17.
“The Philadelphia Municipal Water Supply Was the First of Its Kind,” Civil Engineering Source, American Society of Civil Engineers, January 2, 2021.
Miller, Lynn, “Fairmount Water Works,” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, Rutgers University, 2016.
“Brief History of the Philadelphia Water Department“, Philadelphia Water Department.
“History of New York City Drinking Water,” NYC Environmental Protection.
