The first commercial toilet paper was developed in 1857 by Joseph Gayetty. It failed. People didn't want to waste money on toilet tissue when they could use last month's catalogues - which even gave them some reading material while using their outhouse.

Then came Walter Alcock. He developed a roll, instead of flat sheets, but he was attempting to market his product in Victorian England. Prudishness won that battle.

Then along came the brothers Scott right at the time when flamboyant Americans were installing indoor toilets and advertising the most fashionable European toilets like the Pedestal Vase and toilet seats like the Picture Frame. Theirs was the success story. They sold small rolls of Waldorf Tissue (high-falutin' enough for your Picture Frame) under the slogan "soft as old linen". The name was later changed to ScotTissue, but the snobbery remained. A later ad campaign had the tag line "They have a pretty house, Mother, but their bathroom paper hurts."