A friend mentioned a cloakroom the other day — a little room near the entrance of his elementary school, many years ago, with a sink and toilet. Huh?
I have a vivid memory of a cloakroom from second grade: Miss M. once attempted to quiet us down by throwing her shoes at us as we donned our coats in there. The cloakroom was a genuine room, a small one, with hooks lining three walls. No sink, no toilet. No cloaks either, just coats and hats and mittens and gloves and boots — and shoes flying. Did every classroom in my elementary school have a cloakroom? I have no idea.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives this definition:
A room for the temporary storage of coats, bags, etc., esp. in a large public building, as a theatre, school, railway station, etc., typically near the entrance; such a room containing or adjoining toilets, facilities for washing, etc.; (hence, euphem.) a toilet for public use.The first citation is from 1823. I find it dispiriting to think that our ancestors at least sometimes stored “coats, bags, etc.” in the presence of a public toilet. Talk about a multi-purpose room.
A later meaning (first citation 1865):
Chiefly Brit. and Irish English. A small room in a private home, typically close to the front entrance, which may be used to store coats, hats, shoes, etc., and which may also contain a toilet and often a washbasin.That makes me think that cloakroom and water closet might be roughly synonymous. The OED identifies water closet as “chiefly arch., hist., or euphem., except in the abbreviated form W.C.”
Now frequently used euphemistically in advertising to denote any small room containing a toilet, regardless of whether there is also storage space.
A still later meaning of cloakroom (first citation 1878):
U.S. Politics. A private room adjacent to a legislative chamber of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. where members of Congress and other authorized individuals can meet, work, or relax.No surprise that the cloak of cloakroom means just what you’d expect: “a loose outer garment worn by both sexes over their other clothes.” I was beginning to hope that cloak might be related to cloaca, “a privy,” “a sewer or drain, esp. the main one serving a particular town or district.”
Two cloakrooms lead off each chamber, one for each party. These rooms were originally for the storage of coats, etc.
Wardrobe, by the way, first meant “a privy, a latrine.”
Reader, did you go to a school antique enough to have anything called a cloakroom?
comments: 10
Yes, I am antique enough to remember cloakrooms. Had my first kis in one: first grade, by the boy who liked to yank my pigtails.
It was yucky.
Remember Marcia Lebow's apartment in a renovated schoolhouse in Somerville? I thought it was a clever idea to put the bathroom in the cloakroom, but after reading this post the plumbing might already have been in there!
The "old building" of my elementary school predated indoor plumbing. The new building (c. 1940) did have indoor plumbing, but only in the basement, which had a connecting tunnel to the old building. It was a LONG trip to the bathroom from the top floor of either building.
The "new building" had cloakrooms attached to every classroom, but those cloakrooms were only for coats, and they didn't have bathrooms.
@TheCrow: Martha, I just want to make sure you saw that I was speaking of schools, not readers, as antique. No antiques here. :)
@Elaine, my main memories of Marcia’s apartment are the globe lights, the huge windows, and all the wood. Did her bathroom have coathooks?
In other words, were the hooks still there?
I don't remember!
I think we used the term in our elementary classrooms as well, but it was for our coats and lunches, not a bathroom. By the way, how about that word "restroom"? "Bathroom," of course, doesn't make sense, either, when it comes to public facilities, but I always find it funny when a house guest asks to use my restroom.
Yes, “restroom” is a bit genteel. (Too genteel for the likes of me.) There’s also the retiring room.
At least one of my classes in elementary school had a cloakroom. I know because it's where I hid one day when school let out so I wouldn't have to take the bus home.*
I am 87.4% sure there was a privy behind the cloakroom.
Cloakroom is a great word because none of us wore cloaks (and would have been made fun of if we had). Church also had cloakrooms.
* The upshot was that since my dad was at work and my mother didn't drive, the teacher drove me home.
Rogers Elementary, Ft.Smith, AR, 1955--3rd grade was in the converted library (Baby Boom= overcrowding) and behind the wall at one end of the room was a narrow CLOAKROOM with hooks for coats. No lights or other facilities.
Restrooms were in the basement along with a small cafeteria; (most of us walked home for lunch.) Milk was 2 cents a pint, in glass bottles.
Diane and Elaine, thanks for sharing your cloakrooms here.
I think milk was a nickel at my elementary school. I don’t think it went beyond the early grades. I still remember making butter in kindergarten — shaking a jar of cream, and then having it with Saltines. Good times.
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