History Repeats Itself Or Why we have a TP shortage
1973 was marred by shortages – gasoline, or electricity or onions, so Americans cultivated a “shortage psychology.” Like most scares, it started with an unsubstantiated rumor. In November 1973 news reported a Japanese shortage of toilet paper. Harold V. Froelich, a republican from Wisconsin was concerned. His district had lots of trees and he received complaints about a reduced amount of pulp paper from trees. He had heard the paper shortage, so he published a press release about this. But no one responded and the economy in his state remained in a stalemate. He found out the National Buying Center had not secured enough toilet paper for 
troops and bureaucrats. Again later in November, he issued a second press release, “The U.S. may face a serious shortage of toilet paper within a few months…we hope we don’t have to ration toilet tissue…a toilet paper shortage is no laughing matter. It is a problem that will potentially touch every American.
At a time of economic distress and gas shortages, news outlets sensationalized the story. There was no questioning of the story or checking the facts. The nation was primed for consumer panic. All it took was for the popular Johnny Carson in his stand-up opening to make a joke about no toilet paper.
Hysteria would begin. Americans swarmed grocery outlets and hoarded all the rolls of toilet paper they could find. One woman told her guests to bring toilet paper to her baby shower instead of other gifts. Price of toilet paper increased 30 cents a roll, but customers continued to empty the shelves. Stores struggled to restock. No one followed the rules or cared about other’s needs. Four months of chaos ensued in the struggle to get the desired commodity. Rolls were bartered or traded on the black market.
Television stations aired footage from the Scott Paper Company — one of the ten largest producers in the U.S. — of toilet paper rolls shooting off the production line. Slowly the public grasp the idea that there never had been a toilet paper shortage but that the social media had artificially created the problem.
Blamed for promoting the myth, Johnny Carson offered a serious apology on his show, “I don’t want to be remembered as the man who created a false toilet paper scare,” he told viewers, directly facing the camera. “I just picked up the item from the paper and enlarged it somewhat…there is no shortage.”
Marketing professor Steuart Britt explains the problem of today’s social media, “Everybody likes to be the first to know something. It’s the did-you-hear-that syndrome. In the old days, a rumor took a long time to spread — enough time to let people discover its validity. Now all it takes is one TV personality to joke about it.”
Let us hope we have learned our lesson and behave better, or history will repeat itself.
Toilet paper From Wikipedia
“Joseph Gayetty is widely credited with being the inventor of modern commercially available toilet paper in the United States. Gayetty’s paper, first introduced in 1857, was available as late as the 1920s. Gayetty’s Medicated Paper was sold in packages of flat sheets, watermarked with the inventor’s name. Original advertisements for the product used the tagline “The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty’s medicated paper for the water-closet.”
“Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest United States patents for toilet paper and dispensers, the types of which eventually were in common use in that country, in 1883.
[1] Toilet paper dispensed from rolls was popularized when the Scott Paper Company began marketing it in 1890.
“The manufacturing of this product had a long period of refinement, considering that as late as the 1930s, a selling point of the Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was “splinter free”.
[2] The widespread adoption of the flush toilet increased the use of toilet paper, as heavier paper was more prone to clogging the trap that prevents sewer gases from escaping through the toilet.
[3] “Toilet paper is available in several types of paper, a variety of patterns, decorations, and textures, and it may be moistened or perfumed, although fragrances sometimes cause problems for users who are allergic to perfumes. The average measures of a modern roll of toilet paper is c. 10 cm (315/16 in.) wide, and 12 cm (423/32 in.) in diameter, and weighs about 227 grams (8 oz.).
[4] An alternative method of packing the sheets uses interleaved sheets in boxes, or in bulk for use in dispensers. “Hard” single-ply paper has been used as well as soft multi-ply.
“Toilet paper products vary greatly in the distinguishing technical factors, such as size, weight, roughness, softness, chemical residues, “finger-breakthrough” resistance, water-absorption, etc. The larger companies have very detailed, scientific market surveys to determine which marketing sectors require or demand which of the many technical qualities. Modern toilet paper may have a light coating of aloe or lotion or wax worked into the paper to reduce roughness.
“Quality is usually determined by the number of plies (stacked sheets), coarseness, and durability. Low grade institutional toilet paper is typically of the lowest grade of paper, has only one or two plies, is very coarse and sometimes contains small amounts of embedded unbleached/unpulped paper. Mid-grade two ply is somewhat textured to provide some softness and is somewhat stronger. Premium toilet paper may have lotion and wax and has two to four plies of very finely pulped paper. If it is marketed as “luxury”, it may be quilted or rippled (embossed), perfumed, colored or patterned, medicated (with anti-bacterial chemicals), or treated with aloe or other perfumes.
“In order to advance decomposition of the paper in septic tanks or drainage, the paper used has shorter fibers than facial tissue or writing paper. The manufacturer tries to reach an optimal balance between rapid decomposition (which requires shorter fibers) and sturdiness (which requires longer fibers). Compaction of toilet paper in drain lines, such as in a clog, prevents fiber dispersion and largely halts the breakdown process.
“Colored toilet paper in colors such as pink, lavender, light blue, light green, purple, green, and light yellow (so that one could choose a color of toilet paper that matched or complemented the color of one’s bathroom) was commonly sold in the United States from the 1960s. Up until 2004, Scott was one of the last remaining U.S. manufacturers to still produce toilet paper in beige, blue, and pink. However, the company has since cut production of colored paper altogether.
[5] Today, in the United States, plain nonpatterned colored toilet paper has been mostly replaced by patterned toilet paper, normally white, with embossed decorative patterns or designs in various colors and different sizes depending on the brand. Colored toilet paper remains commonly available in some European countries.
[1] The first of note is for the idea of perforating commercial papers (25 July 1871, #117355), the application for which includes an illustration of a perforated roll of paper. On 13 February 1883 he was granted patent #272369, which presented a roll of perforated wrapping or toilet paper supported in the center with a tube. Wheeler also had patents for mounted brackets that held the rolls. See also Joseph Nathan Kane, “Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States” (H. W. Wilson: 1964), p. 434; Harper’s Magazine, volume. Q, 1941-1943 (Harper’s Magazine Co.:1941), p. 181; Jules Heller, “Paper Making” (Watson-Guptill:1978), p. 193.
[2] O’Reilly, Terry (8 June 2017). “Now Splinter Free: How Marketing Broke Taboos“. Under the Influence. CBC Radio One. Pirate Radio. Retrieved 10 June 2017
[3] Our only good news: Toilet paper won’t run out / How Americans fell for toilet paper
[4] “Toilet paper fun facts“. ToiletPaperHistory.com.
[5] “The unpalatable truth: the colour has drained from our bathrooms?“. The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
by Kay Westcott