Everyone "knows" one thing about William Howard Taft. He got stuck in a bathtub. It’s the ultimate historical punchline. We imagine a team of frantic White House staffers lathering up the 27th President with butter just to pop him loose like a cork from a bottle.
Honestly? It’s a total myth.
There is zero contemporary evidence—no diary entries, no frantic telegrams to plumbers—that Taft ever actually got wedged in a tub. The story didn't even start circulating until two decades after he left office, appearing in a 1934 memoir by a White House usher named Ike Hoover. By the time people were reading about it, Taft was already gone, unable to defend his honor against the "big fat lie" that defined his legacy for a century.
The reality of William Howard Taft facts is way more interesting than a cartoonish accident. He was the only man to head two different branches of government. He was a "trust-buster" who actually out-busted Theodore Roosevelt. And he was a guy who spent most of his life desperately wishing he wasn't President at all.
The Bathtub Legend vs. The Seven-Foot Reality
If you’re looking for the truth about the tub, look at the USS North Carolina. In 1909, before Taft even moved into the White House, he took a trip to inspect the Panama Canal. The ship’s captain, knowing Taft’s size, didn't want to risk a scandal. He ordered a custom-made, solid porcelain bathtub.
It weighed a literal ton.
This thing was seven feet long and 41 inches wide. There’s a famous photo from the Engineering Review showing four grown men sitting comfortably inside it together. Taft didn't get stuck because he made sure his tubs were basically swimming pools. He had these "Taft-sized" basins installed at the White House, on his private yacht, and even at his brother's summer home.
He didn't just want a bath; he wanted to float. He once wrote about wanting a tub deep enough to "lounge" in.
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There was one actual "incident" in 1915 at a hotel in Cape May, New Jersey. Taft, having lost a bit of weight but still being a massive man, didn't account for displacement. He filled the tub to the brim, stepped in, and the resulting tidal wave flooded the floor. Water leaked through the ceiling and dripped onto the heads of bankers dining in the room below.
The next morning, Taft looked out at the Atlantic Ocean and reportedly joked, "I’ll get a piece of that fenced in some day, and then when I venture in, there won’t be any overflow."
A President Who Hated the Job
Taft never really wanted to be President. He was a judge at heart.
"I don't remember that I ever was President," he famously wrote years later. His real dream was the Supreme Court. But his wife, Helen "Nellie" Herron Taft, had different plans. She had visited the White House as a teenager and decided she was going to live there one day. She was the political engine; he was the passenger.
His predecessor and mentor, Teddy Roosevelt, also pushed him into it. Roosevelt saw Taft as the guy who would "put the hay in the barn" after Roosevelt had cut it. But the two men couldn't have been more different. Roosevelt was a whirlwind of energy who stretched the powers of the presidency to their absolute limit. Taft was a constitutional literalist. He believed the President could only do what the law explicitly allowed.
This legalistic approach made him a "poor politician" in the eyes of the public. He wasn't a performer. He didn't like the campaign trail, calling it "one of the most uncomfortable four months of my life."
The Trust-Buster Nobody Remembers
Despite his reputation as a "do-nothing" conservative, Taft was actually a more aggressive reformer than Roosevelt.
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- Roosevelt initiated 44 antitrust suits in seven years.
- Taft initiated 90 antitrust suits in just four years.
He took on the biggest giants of the era: Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and even U.S. Steel (which really ticked off Roosevelt, who had personally approved a U.S. Steel merger). He also pushed for the 16th Amendment, which gave us the federal income tax. Yeah, you can thank (or blame) Taft for that. He also supported the 17th Amendment for the direct election of Senators.
The Battle of the Bulge (and the Scale)
Taft is often remembered only for his weight, which peaked at around 340 pounds. It’s a bit unfair, but his health was a constant struggle that played out in the headlines. He was essentially the first "celebrity weight-loss patient."
He worked with an English doctor named Nathaniel Yorke-Davies via mail. He kept a strict diary of everything he ate. He cut out bread, potatoes, and booze. He even hired a personal trainer and rode horses for exercise.
The weight would yo-yo.
- He’d lose 60 or 70 pounds.
- He’d gain it all back during times of high stress.
Biographers like Judith Icke Anderson have suggested his eating was a coping mechanism for the misery of the presidency. When he finally left the White House in 1913, the weight practically fell off. He lost about 70 pounds in the first year and a half after leaving office. By the end of his life, he was back down to his college weight of about 244 pounds.
Chief Justice: The True Happy Ending
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding gave Taft the only job he ever truly wanted: Chief Justice of the United States.
He is still the only person to have held both offices.
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Taft didn't just sit on the bench; he revolutionized the Court. Before Taft, the Supreme Court was forced to hear almost every appeal that came its way. It was drowning in minor cases. Taft lobbied Congress for the "Judge’s Bill" of 1925, which gave the Court the power to choose its own cases. This allowed them to focus on big constitutional issues—the way the Court operates today is basically Taft’s design.
He also hated that the Supreme Court had to meet in the basement of the Capitol building. He felt the third branch of government deserved its own home. He commissioned the iconic white marble Supreme Court building we see today, though he died just before it was finished.
Lesser-Known William Howard Taft Facts
History is full of weird firsts for this guy.
- The First Pitch: He started the tradition of the President throwing out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game (Washington Senators vs. Philadelphia Athletics, 1910).
- The Car: He was the first President to use an official White House car. He converted the stables into a garage and bought four cars, including a steam-powered White Steamer.
- The Cow: He was the last President to keep a cow on the White House lawn. Her name was Pauline Wayne, and she provided fresh milk for the family.
- Arlington: He was the first President to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
He was also a "Dollar Diplomacy" guy. He thought the U.S. should use its economic might—buying up debts and investing in foreign infrastructure—rather than just "the big stick." It didn't always work. In fact, it often caused more resentment in Latin America, but it was a massive shift in how the U.S. handled the rest of the world.
Why He Actually Matters Today
Taft’s legacy is complicated. He wasn't a charismatic leader like Roosevelt or a visionary like Wilson. He was a "distinguished jurist" who got caught in the crossfire of a changing Republican party.
When Roosevelt tried to take the nomination back from Taft in 1912, it split the party. Roosevelt ran as a third-party "Bull Moose" candidate, which basically handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. Taft finished in a humiliating third place, winning only eight electoral votes.
But if you look at the structure of the American government, Taft's fingerprints are everywhere.
- The way your taxes are collected? Taft.
- The way the Supreme Court functions? Taft.
- The West Wing of the White House? He’s the one who doubled its size and created the Oval Office in its current location.
He wasn't a man "stuck in a tub." He was a man stuck in a job he didn't want, doing the hard, boring work of government until he could finally get back to the law.
Next Steps for History Buffs:
If you want to see the "Taft Era" for yourself, you can visit his boyhood home in Cincinnati. It’s a National Historic Site where they actually have a replica of that massive bathtub. You can also look up his 1926 opinion in Myers v. United States, which is still a landmark case regarding the President's power to fire executive branch officials. It's a deep dive into the legal mind of the only man who truly understood both sides of the Pennsylvania Avenue divide.