What the World Smelled Like Before Industrialization

Farmyard in Britain, circa 1800s

Before the churn of factories and the tang of coal smoke came to dominate modern life during and after the Industrial Revolution, the smells of daily life were intensely organic, shaped by proximity to animals, bodies, plants, and decay. Urban and rural environments offered distinct olfactory experiences, but both were pungent, earthy, and changed with the seasons.

Once industrialization and modern sanitation systems had taken hold in the industrialized world by the mid-1800s (following a transformation that lasted about a century), the smells of waste, sewage, manure, and other organic materials were significantly less common, even in rural areas. Changes in agriculture, the decline of small cottage industries, and advances in chemistry also pushed scents away from earthy and toward synthetic. But understanding these historical odors offers a visceral glimpse into how people once experienced the world — as they say, “the nose knows.”

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What Preindustrial Cities Smelled Like

Before industrialization transformed cities in Britain and the U.S., urban areas were often crowded, unsanitary, and deeply aromatic environments. Unfortunately, some of the most dominant smells were related to waste, both human and animal.

In an era before modern plumbing, human waste flowed unchecked in waterways, pooled in cesspits, or was collected in “night soil” buckets to be used later as fertilizer. Open gutters often carried sewage and refuse, while heaps of offal and carts of dung were common sights — and smells — on city streets.

Animals were also a major contributor to the aromatic landscape, such as it was. Horses were ubiquitous in cities, and their manure (and occasional carcasses) filled the air with ammonia and other not-so-pleasant smells. In New York City there were 10,000 horses by 1835, each producing 15 to 30 pounds of manure and a quart of urine. In her book Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City, historian Catherine McNeur describes how rotten food and dead animals mixed with “enormous piles of manure to create a stench particularly offensive” in the heat of a New York summer.

Meanwhile, in England, the River Thames served as a dumping ground for sewage, emitting overpowering odors that were also especially ripe in the summer. As in America, streets were littered with horse manure, and industries such as tanneries and slaughterhouses contributed to the pervasive foul smells.

In fact, urban centers on both sides of the Atlantic were full of small-scale trades and markets — tanners, butchers, fishmongers — each adding their own pungency. Tanning leather required soaking hides in urine and lime, producing a rank, acrid scent. Butcher shops dumped blood and offal into gutters. In the U.S., industries such as slaughterhouses and leather tanners were called the “offensive trades” because of how they offended the nose, according to historian Melanie Kiechle.

Street vendors contributed too: Roasting chestnuts, boiling tripe, and frying fish could be welcome or foul scents, depending on your appetite and the weather.

What Rural Areas Smelled Like

The countryside offered a different aromatic profile — still strong, but more vegetal and animal in character. Farmland, livestock, and the rhythms of nature defined rural scentscapes.

Agricultural areas were steeped in the scent of animals. Cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens produced manure that lingered in the air, particularly near barns or pens. Hay, wet wool, and milking sheds had their own distinctive odors. Plowed fields released earthy, loamy smells. Manure was prized as fertilizer, especially human waste in places such as colonial New England, where the outhouse “night soil” was repurposed.

Crops also shaped rural smells. In spring and summer, the air might carry the scent of blooming clover, ripening grain, or the resin of pine forests. In autumn, apples, root vegetables, and fermenting fruit filled the air. Occasionally, the burning of wood or peat for heating and cooking added a smoky aroma, alongside smoke from hearths and outdoor fires, especially in the colder months.

But while the countryside generally smelled better than the city, not all its smells were good. Rotting vegetation, dead animals, and stagnant water introduced more offensive smells, while ponds, privies, and uncollected waste could create swampy or sulfurous odors.

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In both rural and urban areas, humans contributed their own smells. In an age before deodorant, daily bathing, or sanitation infrastructure, body odors could be strong. People often wore wool, which retained scents. Scented pomades, herbal sachets, and handkerchiefs were used to mask unpleasant aromas, at least for those who could afford to buy them. Planting sweet-smelling flowers and greenery, such as lilac, was a common method for combatting bad smells, as was wearing a nosegay (a scented flower) on one’s lapel.

Yet for most people, strong and not necessarily pleasant scents were simply part of life. Odors that would be considered offensive today were normal, even unnoticed, in the preindustrial world.

Urban reformers in the 18th and 19th centuries eventually began to link smell with disease (so-called “miasma theory”), sparking sanitation movements that transformed the olfactory landscape by the late 1800s. Today, of course, billion-dollar industries exist to deodorize and perfume both our bodies and living spaces. In the modern world, it’s nearly impossible to imagine how our ancestors tolerated the aromas that were once seen as simply part of being alive.