The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World Book 70)

by Robert J. Gordon

The percentage of urban households supplied with filtered water grew slowly at first, from 0.3 percent in 1880 to 1.5 percent in 1890 and 6.3 percent in 1900. But then came the great rush of construction of waterworks, bringing the urban percentage up to 25 percent by 1910 and to 42 percent by 1925.28 According to the first Census of Housing (see table 4-4), by 1940, fully 93 percent of urban households had running water, and 83 percent had sole use of an indoor toilet.