Why did our (women) ancestors dread Monday? Laundry!
“Queen of the laundry” Jas. S. Kirk & Co. soap makers Chicago ca. 1880. Source: Library of Congress control number 2004666587
BY B.J. SEDLOCK
Something as mundane as knowing how our ancestors kept their clothes clean could be useful in the novel you are writing.
Your novel’s main character is a lady trying to climb the social ladder, and you have a scene in the story where her table partner spills soup down her only party dress. A crisis could ensue if her maid couldn’t clean it well enough to wear again when the aspiring lady can’t afford to buy another. Or perhaps your 18th century detective is investigating a murder in a wash house—you would have to know what a box mangle was to be able to describe how your villain used it with a length of cloth to choke their victim.
Today we don’t appreciate what an onerous task laundry was in the days before electricity. Given how much work went into cleaning clothes by hand, it would have been a major disaster for a housewife or maid to discover that loose livestock or an unruly child broke the clothesline and dumped just-washed clothing into the mud.
Here are some websites and print books that will help you research why Monday, the traditional laundry day, was dreaded.
ONLINE RESOURCES
Brief History of Laundry (Ontario Home Economics Association, Canada)
A brief survey of the task from ancient times.
Blue Monday: Wash Day (Living History Farms, Iowa, U.S.)
Washing day [in the river], Chartres, France, 1903, by Henry Troth. Source:
Library of Congress control number
2004671646
Victorian Laundry (Heritage Square Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.)
Step-by-step guide on how laundry was done in the desert Southwest U.S. in the late 19th century.
Wash House (George Washington’s Mt. Vernon, U.S.)
How laundry was done by enslaved laborers in the 18th century.
Inside the Collections: Laundry Day (Litchfield, Connecticut Historical Society, U.S.)
and Laundry Box: Object Spotlight (Smithsonian, U.S.)
I had never heard of this before; this blog post (former) and article (latter) show a “laundry box” that was used in the first part of the 20th century by college students, summer campers, and military personnel to mail their laundry off to be washed and then returned.
Washday: The Weekly Ritual (Canada’s History)
How early settler Canadians coped with laundry.
An Early History of Chinese Laundries in Boston (Sampan newspaper, Boston, U.S.)
A brief history of the Chinese-owned laundry industry in Boston.
Victorian Wash Day (Museum of Cambridge, U.K.)
This page is aimed at children but is still useful for the basics of 19th century washing chores, and has pictures of the equipment in use then.
Warwickshire Museum from school: The Victorian Laundry (U.K.)
A living history enactor portrays a laundry maid’s chores in this YouTube video. It’s aimed at school-age children, but will be useful for authors who need to learn the basics about laundry in Victorian times.
Sunday Best (Stagecoach Inn Museum, California, U.S.)
“The Herculean task which all women dread…” is surveyed, how washing was done in 19th and early 20th century California, with period photos.
Laundries: Largest Buildings in the Eighteenth-century Backyard (Colonial Williamsburg, U.S.)
Victorian washing machine from Collection of Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. Source: Wikimedia Commons
An article from the CW Journal about the research on and reconstruction of 18th century laundry facilities in Williamsburg.
How Childhoods Spent in Chinese Laundries Tell the Story of America (Atlas Obscura, U.S.)
An article by Eveline Chao on what it was like to grow up in Chinese immigrant families who owned laundries in New York. It’s a .com site, but the stories are really interesting.
The Vanderbilt Laundry Rooms (National Park Service, U.S.)
This page has information on what the laundry facilities were like in an American millionaire’s mansion in Hyde Park, NY, with 7 interesting photos.
“Take heede when ye wash”: Laundry at Poplar Forest (Virginia, U.S.)
Archaeological and historical findings about laundry matters at an estate that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
Laundry in 19th century New York (Ephemeral New York, U.S.)
A blog about New York City history, this post discusses how the poor did their laundry and hung it on lines outside their tenements. But it’s a .com site, so use caution.
Washing Clothes in the Olden Days (Australian Broadcasting Company)
This is a video on the education section of the media company’s site, showing a living history enactor demonstrating how clothing was washed in the 19th century. It’s aimed at children, but will educate you on the basics.
In the Home: Laundry (Old Treasury Building, Melbourne, Australia)
Extensive information on the history of laundry and ironing in Australia.
A Monday washing, New York City, ca. 1900. Credit: Library of Congress control number 2016794196
PRINT BOOKS
The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, by Paul C.P. Siu. New York University Press, 1987. 0814778593
An updating of the author’s 1953 dissertation on the history of Chinese in the laundry industry in the U.S., the only such academic study to that date. Includes origins, social structure, immigration problems, and American public opinion on the topic.
Consider the Laundry Workers, by Jane Filley and Therese Mitchell. League of Women Shoppers, 1937.
This pamphlet exposes the poor working conditions of mostly women workers in commercial steam laundries of the early 20th century. The conclusion is that forming unions and supporting reform legislation would help the workers. This item could generate story ideas about working-class women in the 1930s.
Crinolines and Crimping Irons: Victorian Clothes, How They were Cleaned and Cared For, by Christina Walkley and Vanda Foster. Peter Owen, 1985 (reprint of 1978 edition). 0720605008
“We aim to describe the sort of clothing which our great-grandmothers had to clean, and to give details of the methods they used.”—p.14. Emphasis is on the U.K.
Enduring Hardship: the Chinese Laundry in Canada, by Ban Seng Hoe. Canadian Museum of Civilization, 2003. 0660190788
Immigrant Chinese “create[d] their own economic niche” in Canada, in an industry that did not require much capital outlay or a good knowledge of Western languages.
Laundering, 2nd ed., by L. Ray Balderston. L.R. Balderston, 1914.
The author emphasizes the scientific/chemical aspect of laundry. He suggests cleaning velvet by sprinkling it with cornmeal and brushing it off. Rather startlingly, he recommends dangerous chemicals like kerosene and chloroform for certain tasks—a story idea for a murder mystery, death by laundry?
The Laundry, by Flora Rose. Cornell Reading-Course for Farmer’s Wives, 1909.
How to make soap, soap substitutes, how to remove different stains, etc.
Simple Directions for the Laundress, by Caroline Reed Wadhams. Longmans, Green and Co., 1917.
This book is aimed at educating laundry maids, including how a maid should conduct herself. A good place to start if you are contemplating a story centered around a maid.
Champion American soap powder ad, 1887. Source: Library of Congress control number 2005694421
Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1940, by Arwen P. Mohun. Johns Hopkins Press, 1999. 0801860024
In the 19th century, “entrepreneurs and machinery manufacturers tried to remove laundry work from the domestic sphere and transform it into an industrial process.”—Introduction. Then after World War II, laundry processes returned back to the domestic sphere as more homes were able to afford washing machines.
In the early part of the 20th century in the U.S., home economics was becoming an academic discipline and being taught in schools and colleges. Below are a few additional titles, like Laundering above, that I suspect were written to be used as textbooks in home ec classes:
The Chemistry of Laundry Materials, by D.N. Jackman. Longmans, Green, 1936.
Guide to Laundry-Work, a Manual for Home and School, by Mary Chambers. Boston Cooking-School Magazine, 1915.
Laundering and Dry-Cleaning. Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences, 1925.
Laundry Work for Use in Homes and Schools, by Juniata Shepperd. Ward Publishing, 1909.
Laundry Work in Theory and Practice, by E.L. Marsh. Longmans, Green, 1914.
About the contributor: B.J. Sedlock is Lead Librarian and Coordinator of Metadata and Archives at Defiance College in Defiance, Ohio. She writes book reviews and articles for The Historical Novels Review and has contributed to The Sondheim Review.
