As the 1800s went on, New York was bursting at the seams with new residents. By 1850, the city had a population of a little over 500,000. By 1890, the number was 1.5 million.
That’s a lot of bodies—and a lot of bodily waste. Though flush toilets existed in the late 19th century, they were generally installed in the houses of the rich.
Going to the bathroom for tenement dwellers meant using an outhouse (until the Tenement House Act of 1901 mandated private indoor toilets). Needless to say, waste piled up.
Enter the night soil cartmen. These men made a living after dark, entering tenement districts and removing the “night soil”—a creative euphemism for excrement—from outdoor privies.
The guy who actually picked up the waste (using a cart probably similar to this garbage cart above) apparently worked for a company, which was awarded a city contract take care of unsanitary things like dead animals, trash, and tons of human waste.
Where did they take the night soil? “In New York, the reeking loads were sometimes carted off to country farms to be used as fertilizer,” states a piece from Atlas Obscura.
“But more often they were hauled through the night to a designated pier and dumped into the Hudson or East Rivers (and sometimes mistakenly onto the private boats below), creating a stinking, festering shoreline. The waste would settle into the slips and city workers would periodically have to dredge the excrement so that boats could actually dock.”
The job must have been deeply unpleasant, but it was an important one. Trucking away the night soil certainly helped cut back on disease and made poor neighborhoods packed with people slightly more habitable.
Like the blacksmith and streetcar conductor, the night soil cartman disappeared after the turn of the century in New York and other U.S. cities. Think about his job this Labor Day. Working in a cube farm won’t sound like such a bad thing after all!
[Top photo: NYPL; second photo: NYPL; third image: Brooklyn Daily Eagle; fourth photo: MCNY collections/Robert L. Bracklow, 93.91.281]
Tags: garbage carts East River, garbage in New York City, Night Soil, outhouses tenements NYC, Tenement House Act 1901, Tenement Life NYC, toilets in tenements
Ephemeral New York 
September 2, 2016 at 2:09 pm |
Sadly, in many parts of the world this still *is* a job. NY and London also suffered horrendous outbreaks of Cholera in the 19th century that was not brought under control until indoor plumbing became standard.
September 2, 2016 at 5:10 pm |
Yes, and the devastating 1866 cholera outbreak in NYC became a turning point for the city in improving sanitation:
http://www.tenement.org/encyclopedia/diseases_cholera.htm
September 2, 2016 at 2:44 pm |
I grew up in St. Louis and my father was what is referred to today as house flipper. He told me that in the 1950’s while renovating houses in the City of St. Louis (as opposed to St. Louis County) there were still plenty of outhouses and he was the one to put the first toilet inside the house. In 1950 St. Louis was the 8th largest city in the United States.
September 2, 2016 at 5:07 pm |
I hope things are more sanitary in St. Louis these days!
September 3, 2016 at 12:35 pm |
Brilliant labor day post! Because most of what has been preserved from the past—buildings, furniture, personal belongings—belonged to the privileged few, I think we tend to get a lopsided view of what life was really like before modern technology. This is an eye opener and a reminder of how lucky we are!
September 3, 2016 at 8:44 pm |
Thank you!
November 21, 2016 at 2:37 pm |
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February 21, 2020 at 5:33 am |
If they were dumping all this waste in the Hudson and East River, from where we’re people getting their water?
December 17, 2020 at 10:56 pm |
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One of the worst jobs in 19th century New York | Ephemeral New York
April 11, 2022 at 9:03 am |
YUCK,brave man