Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Airborne Toilets
Franklin Roosevelt was elected to four terms as U.S. President, serving from 1933 until his death during his fourth term in 1945. He led his country out of the Depression and through World War II.
The worldwide conflict required the Allied leaders — Franklin Roosevelt of the U.S., Winston Churchill of the U.K., and Josef Stalin of the U.S.S.R. — to travel as no previous leaders had. Conferences in Argentina, Casablanca, Cairo, Tehran, Yalta, and more, all at a time only only before intercontinental jet travel, but during wartime. The complete list is impressive.
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster was the first purpose-built U.S. Presidential aircraft. This was a four-engined transport introduced in 1942. It was derived from the civilian DC-4, and was one of the most commonly used long-range transports for the U.S. armed forces during World War II.
It had a length of about 94 feet and a wingspan of 117.5 feet. With four Pratt and Whitney R-2000-9 radial engines, it had a cruise speed of 190 mph, a maximum speed of 275 mph, a range of 4,000 miles, and a service ceiling of 22,300 feet.
In 1944, a C-54A was converted to a Presidential transport version designated VC-54C.
The aircraft was considered a restricted area because of the strict wartime security. Ground service personnel not allowed on or near the plane began to refer to it as "the sacred cow".
The White House Press Corps overheard this, and began referring to the aircraft as the Sacred Cow in their writing.
No, this is not FDR! It's a rather startled looking manniquin on board the Sacred Cow. It is now at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio.
FDR's manniquin is seated with his back to the left fuselage wall. This is a meeting area with a conference table.
Roosevelt's on-board lavatory is barely visible through the curtain behind him.
Personal compartments were located toward the rear, staff and aircrew areas were forward.
A few bunks like those on overnight trains lined the narrow central passageway forward, providing much better overnight rest than the tightly packed coach seats of today.
Two-way communication gear was on board, but the state of the art in the 1940s was analog HF voice and CW. Somehow things progressed.
Roosevelt's successor Harry Truman also used the Sacred Cow until it was replaced with his Independence. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 on board Sacred Cow, creating the U.S. Air Force.
Here we see the Sacred Cow at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio.
Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.
In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.
The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.
Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.
Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.
Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.
| A Sani-Flush blue border indicates a toilet that I've used. |
How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? I'm not exactly sure, although they started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.
My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilet of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.
In December, 2010 I registered the toilet-guru.com domain and moved the pages to a dedicated server.
If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):
