When I say I’m as old as Kitty Litter, it’s no joke!

I only recently learned that Kitty Litter and I were both born in 1947.

And it was the start of a new era for cats and their chosen people. I didn’t understand until now that we grew up in this new world where cats were desirable indoor pets!

Prior to that, most cats were prized for rodent control and lived outdoors or, if inside, knew how to access a window or screen door when they had to, you know, do their business. Early attempts to provide a place to poop relied on dirt, fireplace ashes, newspapers, or sand, which made for messy homes.

It was the discovery and marketing of kitty litter that “brought the cat indoors,” making it possible for larger numbers of cats to move to the safety and comfort of indoor living.

Here’s the story of kitty litter, as recounted by in the New York Time obituary of Edward Lowe, the man who adapted an industrial product to improve the lives of cats and their people. I added the newspaper advertisement, which was in 1948, just a year after Lowe began marketing his product.

Cats have been domesticated since ancient Egypt, but until a fateful January day in 1947, those who kept them indoors full time paid a heavy price. For all their vaunted obsession with paw-licking cleanliness, cats, whose constitutions were adapted for arid desert climes, make such an efficient use of water that they produce a highly concentrated urine that is one of the most noxious effluences of the animal kingdom.

1948 ad

Boxes filled with sand, sawdust or wood shavings provided a measure of relief from the resulting stench, but not enough to make cats particularly welcome in discriminating homes.

In a story he always relished telling, that began to change in 1947, when Mr. Lowe, a 27-year-old Navy veteran who had been working in his father’s sawdust business, received a visit from a cat-loving Cassopolis (Michigan) neighbor named Kaye Draper, whose sand box had frozen.

She asked Mr. Lowe for some sawdust, but on a sudden inspiration he suggested she try something he had in the trunk of his car, a bag of kiln-dried granulated clay, a highly absorbent mineral that his father, who sold sawdust to factories to sop up grease spills, had begun offering as a fireproof alternative.

When Ms. Draper came back a few days later asking for more, Mr. Lowe thought he might be onto something. To find out for sure, he took 10 sacks, carefully wrote the words “Kitty Litter” on the sides and filled them with five pounds of the granules.

When his suggestion that they be sold at a local store to cat owners for 65 cents — at a time when sand was selling at a penny a pound — drew a hoot, Mr. Lowe suggested they be given away. When the customers returned asking for “Kitty Litter” by name, a business and a brand were born.

It took a while, but Mr. Lowe, who began by filling his ’43 Chevy coup with hand-filled bags of Kitty Litter and visiting pet stores and cat shows, soon had a booming business.

Adapting clay for use as a cat box litter made Mr. Lowe a millionaire many times over, in part because it has been credited with giving dogs a rival in American homes.

I turned to an AI assistant with a question about how kitty litter changed the relationships between cats and people.

Cat litter did indeed change the relationship between people and cats in several significant ways:

Increased indoor living: Before the invention of cat litter, most cats lived primarily outdoors or spent a lot of time outside to relieve themselves. Cat litter made it more practical and hygienic for cats to live exclusively indoors, strengthening the bond between cats and their human companions.

Easier care and maintenance: Cat litter made it easier for people to care for their cats, as they no longer had to deal with the mess and smell of traditional litter materials like sand or dirt. This encouraged more people to adopt cats as pets and fostered a closer relationship between cats and their owners.

More affectionate and social cats: Indoor living allowed cats to spend more time with their human families, leading to increased socialization and bonding. Many cats became more affectionate, playful, and loyal as a result of their closer interactions with people.

Improved health and safety: Indoor cats generally have longer lifespans and are less exposed to dangers like cars, predators, and diseases. Cat litter played a role in this by making indoor living more feasible and comfortable for both cats and their owners.

Life is inevitably history, I suppose, but understanding that fact is not.