All The Poop That's Fit To Print: Exploring Poop In The New York Times Archives

Last week, the New York Times announced [1] it was making all the content on its website free. Whereas once you had to pay to access articles dating back to the paper's founding in 1851, now this trove of history and knowledge is accessible to anyone with a login and password.

Login: poopreport. Password: poopreport. You can use that ID to follow in my steps, because the first thing I did when I heard their announcement was to search for the Times' first use of the word "poop."

The results weren't as fulfilling as my research into the first appearance of the word "poop" on the Internet [2], which led me to identify (and interview!) the Internet's first PoopReporter [3]: Tom Reingold, who described his changing needs for bathroom privacy on the misc.kids newsgroup. But most early references to poop on the Times (like this one [4], for instance) refer to "poop decks" (which, in spite of what we may think [5], are actually standard features [6] in naval architecture). This appears to be the case on September 24, 1851, in an article entitled "MARINE INTELLIGENCE.; PORT OF NEW-YORK. Cleared. Arrived. Telegraph Domestic Ports. Spoken, &c."

[7]

"Marine intelligence", I take it, refers to the comings and goings of various boats into and out of New York Harbor; this passage reports that the Argo, from Liverpool, arrived on the 20th of August, 1851, carrying 81 people in the poop deck.

I assume that most of the appearances of "poop" in the years that followed are similar. But the Times only allows you to download a PDF scan of the article, instead of letting you browse the digitize text rather than browsing the digitized text; so with no find function, it would take forever to go through each article to find out when "poop" is first discussed in a non-sailing context.

Outside of sailing, the only major appearances I could find were due to scanning errors. For instance, here is an article that appeared on February 4, 1923:

[8]

Nothing bathroom-related about that. But in the search results, that headline is rendered thusly:

"Poop Ice Stops Army Hockey Games" [9]

Similar scanning errors give us similar results.

"Inventor Dies in the Poop House" [10]

"20,000 Toy Ones to be Bestowed on Poop Children by Mrs. M.L. Towns" [11]

"Priest Criticizes Idealists Who Try to Teach the Poop How to Live" [12]

[13]

This article [14], from April 10, 1879, came across as "poop" in the search results; I can't tell if it's a scanning error or not.

[15]

Some other notable New York Times milestones.

July 13, 1969: the first appearance of "feces" [16], in a book review. ("If you value your digestion and peace of mind, read no further. We're going to be talking about fleas and feces.")
October 29, 1851: the first appearance of "toilet" [17], in a list of award winners at the Industrial Exhibition of 1851. ("Hauel, J...... toilet soaps.")
Dec 12, 1851: the first appearance of the phrase "water closet" [18], in testimony offered by Pugh Smith during the trial of Lawrence Reily for the murder of his wife and his wife's mother. ("When the dinner was ready, I found Reily in the water closet, asleep; the door was fastened on the inside.")
September 20, 1851: the first appearance of the word "diarrhea" [19], in a report on the health of President Millard Fillmore. ("I have just left the President. He has suffered considerably during the night and morning from an attack of diarrhea and stomach derangement, similar to his attack, recently, at White Sulphur Springs, and brought on by change of water, cold and fatigue.")
July 15, 1888: the first appearance of the phrase "toilet paper" [20], in a trial following a hazing scandal at the Annapolis Naval Academy. ("He is charged with requiring Cadets Davidson and Stockford to chew their toilet paper.")
December 3, 1856: the first appearance of the word "excreta" [21], in a report on findings presented at the Horticultural Society. ("In passing through animal bodies, as part of themselves and not as excreta, mineral materials acquire a modification which renders them better fitted for similar and further uses.")
December 25, 1852: the first appearance of the word "bathroom" [22]. (It's somewhere in a 5,000 word article; with a lack of a search function, I'm sure as hell not going to go searching for it.)
January 10, 1910: the first appearance of the phrase "dangling ass grapes" [Array]. (OK, that phrase hasn't ever been in the New York Times. But I DID search for it, just in case.)

Google News appears to have indexed the Times archive; searching there is more fruitful because they, at least, show the keyword as it appears in context. It's not a bad interface [23], so maybe one of you will have more luck finding "poop" as we now know it.