New in the collection: Tip sheet for outhouses

A list of seven recommendations from the Guilford County Board of Health for use of a privy

“Decades ago, outhouses were encouraged as an alternative to the river or the woods. In the 1930s, part of the New Deal funded a program to build and renovate outhouses in rural parts of the country. In North Carolina, 63,311 new privies were built, second only to West Virginia, according to a pamphlet published in 1936 by W.O. Saunders, editor of a local newspaper called The Independent….”
— From “Outhouse shows a luxurious life” in the Virginian-Pilot by Jeffrey S. Hampton (Nov. 6, 2005)

I have a particular appreciation of humble “how life was lived” items, a category this privy instruction sheet surely exemplifies. But the lack of glue residue or tack holes suggests it may never have reached its target readership.