B D a History on Laundry

Laundry After 1800 A History After the year 1800, laundry was becoming the spotlight for many on different inventions and evolving Pictured above are some of the irons methods. The metal washboard, featured at the Fultz House Museum. Laundry handheld agitators, and washing A Short History machines were just a few of the new items introduced to the on Ironing washing world. Many people Ironing is the act of making started washing at home and clothing smooth and wrinkle free. integrating the use of soap and It is not known when exactly starch. people started to iron their clothes but it is first recorded that the Monday as a wash day became Chinese used hot metal to flatten a popular occurrence because of their clothing before anyone. Early the heavy religious values at the Europeans used flat hand-size time. Sunday was a day of rest rocks to rub over cloth. Tools like for family and a large dinner the mangle board were other would have been made. The common sights in many dinner would have produced households. Paired with a rolling many leftovers, which meant pin, the mangle board was used to that Monday did not have to be push the pin along the laundry to spent cooking all day and left remove creases. time for laundry. Early irons would have been made Washing machines started being of stone while metal irons became widely used later on. Most were known to people in the mid-19th made of solid iron with a handle century and were a simple that was welded to the top. These evolution of the washtub. metal handles originally would Inventors simply added a have required a thick cloth or rag rotisserie with a lever that spun to hold because of the high an agitator when turned. Today’s temperature it would have This ironing board is located in washing machine includes many reached. Wooden handles were intricate gears and modes of also used to prevent burning of the Fultz House kitchen. washing the clothing. It shows the hands. Over the years, more how far the evolution of this modifications were made and Victorian era invention has come eventually became the irons that Fultz House since its beginning. exist today that are electric with only a metal plate on the bottom. Museum However, it was not until the mid-1800s that early An Introduction to Laundry washing machines were seen. Before this Interesting Facts invention, laundry was done solely by hand. Using a washboard would have been the most common method of cleaning. A washboard was different Clothes are a piece of society that has existed for than the washing board and was originally a The history of laundry is one that thousands of years. Since clothing has been a part of wooden board with several horizontal notches cut has greatly changed over the years. our daily lives, washing clothes is an activity that has into it. The article of clothing would be rubbed Most of the new inventions we can been paired with it. Since the beginning of clothing, along the notches causing the dirt to come out. still see today. However, most washing has evolved in its methods and equipment. By 1833, metal washboards were being made people are not aware of some of Originally and in some places even today, washing from new materials such as sheet iron, copper or the interesting facts and inventions clothing in a river was a common practice. Many zinc. that many people of the past people would take their laundry to the river and use commonly lived with and used. rocks to remove the dirt. Boiling the clothes was a Once washed, the next step was drying the th routine method of cleaning as well. Others might clothing. Early settlers in rural communities would The end of the 16 century and th have used special tools to assist them with the have had a rope or a wooden frame to hang the throughout the 17 century saw washing. Tools may have included a washing board or linens on. In the more populated areas, it was the evolution of soap cakes made a bat. common to have a communal drying area where out of fats, glycerine and fatty people could go and socialize while putting their acids. The washing board (as seen to laundry out to dry. On days with poor weather, the the left) was a flat piece of wood laundry would have been put on hangers above Before running water, one wash, that would be placed on the the stove to dry (as seen below). boiling and a rinse would use ground and used to scrub the dirt about 190 litres (50 gallons) of out of the clothing. The washing water. bat, known as a “beetle”, was used for beating the dirt out. The The first synthetic detergent was dirt that was found on clothes created in 1916 after a shortage of fell into two categories: stains fats for making soap at the end of and soil. Stains included the World War I. They were not highly visible, localized dirt that produced for home use until the one might see after spilling 1930’s. something on the clothing and soil was mostly from the body. A spin dry cycle was added to the washing machine to reduce the When clothing became too stained to wash with use of a wringer in the 1950’s Laundry Before 1800 the more common methods, the locals often had a “Grand Wash”. This Grand Wash was a day Early sea voyagers would put their where people would soak their clothes in lye to laundry in a bag and toss it Before the year 1800, most people would have bleach them and put them out to dry. Using lye overboard to drag behind the boat washed their laundry by hand. Even as early as the was one of the only ways to return the clothing to to wash. 1400’s, inventors were trying to come up with new the original light color. ideas to make washing clothes more efficient. .

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