Look, I don’t know how else to say it: 1909 was a weird year. Particularly for William Howard Taft. Not only did he inadvertently launch the colossal failure of a follow-up to the teddy bear—the stuffed Billy Possum—but he also embarked on a massive 13,000 mile cross-country trip that spawned one of the greatest presidential legends in history.
I’m talking about the story that the 340-pound Taft got stuck in a bathtub and needed the help of multiple people to pull him free. Historians have roundly debunked the story due to a lack of evidence, and who am I to disagree?
I’ll tell you who I am. I’m a historian. At least according to this social media post from Smithsonian magazine:
I used to insist that I was not a historian—I didn’t have the professional training or experience of scholars. Things have changed. Now that I’ve been doing this kind of research for a decade and I’m on my way to getting a master’s in history from UMass Boston, I’m okay embracing the term as a work in progress and constant learning. The term “expert,” though, I’m a little less comfortable with, even though I was happy to play the presidential expert in a recent episode of the kid’s gameshow podcast The Big Fib.
I’m excited to share that I recently published my second piece in Smithsonian magazine, digging into the origins of this bathtub tale. Despite the post above, the article only briefly touches on fatphobia and focuses mostly on a long-forgotten version of this story—a 1929 article by travel writer, adventurer, and war correspondent Lewis R. Freeman.
This challenges the historical consensus that the first printed version of this story came from the 1934 memoir of White House usher Ike Hoover. Hoover may have been a gossip, but he didn’t invent this story and neither did the ghostwriter responsible for finishing the book after Hoover’s death. I’m thrilled to have shared my research into this legend in the article “Popular Lore Claims That William Howard Taft Got Stuck in a Bathtub. New Research Sheds Light on the Legend’s Forgotten Origins.”
You can also listen to Jess and I talk about the story behind the story on our most recent episode How Taft Got Stuck in the Bathtub.
But back to 1909, that very weird year. Aside from the possum mania that struck the nation (and was the subject of my first Smithsonian magazine piece and one of my favorite episodes of our podcast), 1909 was also known for something else.
If the local stories are to be believed, it was the year when William Howard Taft first traveled the country like a hermit crab trying on various bathtubs for size, inevitably becoming stuck and requiring assistance in hotels and private residences from Nashville, Tennessee, to Portland, Oregon. These stories paint Taft as a man who craved baths with the same kind of helpless recklessness of Winnie the Pooh’s lust for honey.
When I first started researching this story, I was surprised to find a single version set outside the White House. But then I found more, and more…
In fact, here’s a handy infographic of the various places—that I know of—associated with stories of Taft getting stuck in their bathtubs:
To be clear, I’m not saying there is any truth to the story that Taft got stuck in a tub—there is no contemporary evidence that he did. But I also can’t say with confidence that Taft never found himself in a situation where he needed help out of a tub—it’s entirely plausible. And while I’d love to know the truth behind what sparked the story in the first place, I’m excited about how much I was able to dig up and how much more might be out there.
Who knows how many bathtubs out there hold stories of holding Taft? If you know of any, please let me know. I love tracing legends like this—their origin, their spread, their evolution. Exploring their meanings, debunking them, and sometimes even questioning whether they should be undebunked...
From dubious historical markers and roadside signs to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader and Snapple caps, I just can’t get enough of this stuff.
I am, you could say, a historian of presidential myths.
And I’m curious—what legendary American stories fascinate you?