1871 Seth Wheeler

It is sold in rolls and becomes a popular alternative to flat sheets.

Seth Wheeler, organizer and president of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Company, was born at Chatham, Columbia county, N.Y May 18, 1838. Son of Alonzo and Harriet (Bishop) Wheeler. Educated at the Albany Academy,he entered business as Mechanical Superintendent for Wheeler, Melick and Company, of Albany, manufacturers of agricultural implementsof which firm his father was a member.

In 1877 he organized the A.P.W. Paper Company, of which he was chosen president. This concern was engaged in the manufacturer of all kinds of perforated and rolled paper and had branch offices at New YorkChicago,Boston,San Francisco London, Paris,Berlin and Cologne.

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. 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". 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.

1940s

"In the 1940s, the days of rationing and austerity, many families used newspaper as toilet paper, cut into sheets and placed on a string.

“And the older generation will remember Izal toilet paper, a rather scratchy version impregnated with Izal disinfectant and often found in public service buildings.