Nightsoil and the ‘Great Divergence’: human waste, the urban economy, and economic productivity, 1500–1900

The use of nightsoil, a Victorian euphemism for human faeces and urine, has for some time been recognized as an important feature of Chinese and Japanese agricultural practice. The importance of the work of nightsoil men and women in early modern and modern cities in other parts of the world has not been the subject of much attention, however, nor has the significance of the differential use of human waste. This article explores the varied ways in which nightsoil men and women organized their work in cities around the world in the period from 1500 to 1900. It also examines the ways in which East Asian and South Asian conservancy systems and the consequent development of markets in human manure contributed materially to Asian advantages in agriculture, sanitation, and textile production. European urban authorities, reformers, and scientists initially responded to this challenge with similar efforts to conserve human waste and use it in farming, but these efforts remained small-scale, and in the nineteenth century Europeans turned to chemically synthesized fertilizers.