In fact, advertisements for oil giant gas stations from the early to mid 20th century ensured travelers that their bathrooms were as clean as the driver’s home bathroom.
In response to the increasing number of women driving and traveling around the country, companies have sought to make bathrooms feel like home. By 1928, according to trade magazines, women had purchased half of the gas station fuel that year.
“She remembers the dirty toilet and avoids the station on her next trip,” read a 1938 article in the trade magazine National Petroleum News under the heading “Women Shun Dirty Stations.”
Appeal to women
At the turn of the 20th century, car drivers pulled to blacksmiths, hardware stores, or pharmacies to buy tin cans of gasoline.
By 1920, there were 15,000 gas stations in the United States. However, many of these stations were in a shabby state and their design and service were retrofitted.
As competition for customers intensified in the 1920s and 1930s, companies realized that they needed a way to separate stations beyond the indistinguishable gasoline brands they sold. They began to focus on services and amenities.
At that time, the general public was worried about the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in public facilities. “The station must be clean to overcome the growing fear of syphilis,” National Petroleum News warned in 1938.
Better bathrooms were intended to mitigate these fears, especially to help attract women.
According to an article in an industry magazine during the period that Spellman unearthed, women consistently cited clean toilets as a top priority for patronizing gas stations.
The bathroom layout was compliant with the gender standards of the time. Unlike today, when all customers usually have to enter a gas station to use the bathroom, the typical women’s toilets of the time were on the back or side of the building to enhance privacy for women. was built. On the other hand, the men’s room was in the store near the sales floor.
Gender roles at the time dictated that women be responsible for everything related to the house, including the bathroom, Spellman said.
The company believed that if a woman had a good experience with one of the toilets, she would tell a friend that the bathroom was safe for them and their children to use.
By the late 1920s, gas stations had changed bathrooms to accommodate women, Spellman said. The station has begun to install facilities with hot and cold water, mirrors, soap, toilet paper, a powder room, a dressing table and a sofa.
“White Patrol”
Companies have spawned a series of campaigns to illuminate clean bathrooms through national and women’s magazines, billboards, and billboards posted outside gas stations in the 1930s and 1940s.
The company dispatched a fleet of inspectors in a white car called a “white patrol” to ensure that the toilets were up to standard. Stations that met a set of criteria could post white and green “registered toilet” signs outside the stop. This informs the customer that the bathroom is safe to use.
An ad for Texaco in 1938, “The New Crusades on the American Highway … White Patrol,” was published in Korea’s magazine. “In each car … trained inspector” ensures “a spicy, spanned break room fully equipped for comfort”.
“You’re lucky, Betty,” the mother told her daughter in an ad. “I remember when it was difficult to find such a clean and attractive break room.”
Shell responded with a “White Cross of Cleanliness” advertising campaign in partnership with GoodHousekeeping Magazine. Shell Station has installed signs to warn customers that toilets are kept “home clean” according to magazine standards.
Images of mothers and daughters, nurses, white gloves and other themes were meant to reassure white women, especially regarding gas station bathroom standards. Black drivers have been excluded from corporate strategy.
At Jim Crow South, the separation method required separate facilities for blacks and whites. Also, according to Bay, there were few separate “colored toilets” at major gas stations. She added that black drivers in the South were usually forced to look for gas stations owned by blacks.
Hold it at the gas station
According to gas station and public facility historians, there are several reasons.
By the late 1960s, gas stations “began to lose their reputation”, Anderson said, as they stopped introducing toilets directly in advertising campaigns.
“Gas stations were angry with government outsourcing,” Simon said. “They see it as a waste of their earnings.”
Bathrooms deteriorated and customers treated them worse because the station did not focus too much on maintenance, Simon said, describing it as a “malicious spiral.”
Bathroom conditions also deteriorated as gas prices soared in the 1970s and self-service replaced station staff.
Drivers are now focused on finding the cheapest gas. Many were willing to sacrifice clean toilets when it meant saving a few cents per gallon rather than the cleanest bathrooms and stations with the best service.
“Gas has increased its transactions with self-service,” Simon said. “Services and amenities are on the roadside.”
But even today, a few gas station chains borrow tactics from the early days of clean bathrooms as a way to attract customers.
The Midwestern Kwik Trip has posted a “Clean Restroom Promise” sign in every bathroom with the name of CEO Don Zietlow and a hotline number for filing complaints. Zietlow personally receives and responds to all calls.
And Buc-ee’s in Texas regularly ranks them as having top-class bathrooms in the gas station industry. The company uses signs along the highway to promote facilities such as “two reasons to stop at Buc-ee: No. 1 and No. 2” and “a break room where you have to pee”.
Source: www.cnn.com
