Victorian Laundry

Victorian Laundry

(or, Aren't You Glad You Didn't Live Then?)

Though laundry day isn’t my favorite day of the week, I sometimes force myself to stop and consider just how easy I’ve got it. Almost all of our clothes are washable, and those that aren’t either get a quick pick–up by tossing them in the dryer with some Dryell, or they get dropped off to the dry cleaners, where somebody else has to deal with them. After I sort the washable items into dark, light, and heavily soiled piles, I just toss them into our washing machine with a little soap. Minutes later, I throw them into the dryer. Minutes later, I hang them up. If any ironing is necessary, it’s usually just for touch ups, and my light–weight Rowenta steam iron makes quick work of it.

150 years ago, however, washing was not a chore that took a few hours. The washing machine itself didn’t become generally available until the 1880s—and it was a far cry from today’s modern electric marvel. It took a woman with some arm muscles to work one of those all day long! Many women forewent the machine until the 20th century because it had a tendency to tear clothes or leave rust marks. And the washing machine was only the beginning. The clothes had to be soaked, rinsed several times, boiled, starched, blued or bleached, wrung, then hung up to dry and ironed. And unwashable clothes...well, let’s not even go there. “Washing,” Mrs. Julia McNair Wright wrote in her 1879 book The Complete Home: An Encyclopedia of Domestic Life & Affairs, “...is a great burden, and often a family bugbear.” In fact, her book suggests, by strongly advising women to wash each week, that the laundry was such a burden clothes were often left dirty for weeks at a time.

“Remember that washing is very hard work; more young women break down their strength with washing than with any other toil,” Mrs. Wright goes on. “If young women would only remember not to mix together work with washing; if they would not hurry too much to be ‘smart about getting done;’ if they would lighten the task by soaking the clothes, and by using a clothes–wringer...instead of straining their chests and ruining their backs by lifting while tubs of water, or boilers of clothes, or by carrying to the line a basket heaped with wet clothes...we should have fewer broken–down women.” The writers of the 1907 edition of Home & Health thought modern machinery was so important that they suggested: “If means are too limited to furnish a house well at first, furnish the laundry and kitchen anyway; and then, having preserved your health and strength, you can save, and earn money for furnishing the other rooms of the house.” That’s a pretty radical statement for an era where home furnishings were the mark of a good housekeeper and a “respectable” family!

This Is The Way We Wash Our Clothes

The first step women took on washing day was to fetch water from the well. Unfortunately, I’ve been advised, most wells were down a slope, which meant that once she had the water in hand, a woman had to carry those heavy buckets uphill. Sometimes women used yokes to make the burden a bit easier; this meant the back took the brunt of the work. Another handy device, used to keep heavy buckets from banging into a woman’s legs, was the hoop. This was simply a big ring that the water-carrier stood inside; the buckets attached to the outside of the hoop.

If a woman was fortunate, she could forego a lot of effort by pumping water directly from the kitchen. If the available water was hard or otherwise not good for washing, it was treated—often by boiling it with wood ashes and then straining it; later, Borax was a favorite for the same purpose.

Next, the soap would be gathered. Often, this was lye soap, which had enough alkaline in it to make dirt considerably easier to remove than other type of soap. It was usually homemade (from water, wood ash, and lard). Household manuals contain a myriad of recipes for soap, however. Most households probably had a handful of varieties available for different purposes. Books touted one soap for laces, another for “rejuvenating” fabric, another for delicate white dresses, another for wools, etc. Peasant women sometimes washed clothing without any soap at all. This was achieved by tramping the wet garments with their feet, or by hitting the clothes against the rocks in a stream.

But the average woman used a washing tub, not a stream, to clean the family’s clothes. She sorted her laundry much as I do: She separated lights and darks, and made a special pile of particularly soiled clothing. Heavier items might also have their own pile. Very dirty clothes, or very heavy ones, were often soaked in lye first, then boiled. Lighter garments were washed in cold or lukewarm water by hand. Contrary to most modern notions, only the dirtiest items, or garments with the toughest stains, were scrubbed on a washboard. (If most items had been scrubbed in this fashion, there would be far fewer antique garments left for us to collect!) A more modern method of agitating clothes was a “dolly.” This was a wooden stick with wood pins attached to the bottom. The laundress stuck the dolly into the wash tub, and spun it...basically achieving what the modern washing machine agitator does. Practical Housekeeping, published in 1884, suggested that in the summer, the excessive heat of washing day could be reduced by not lighting a fire and soaking the clothes “overnight in soapy soft water, rubbing out in the morning, soaping the dirty placed, and laying them in the hot sunshine. By the time the last are spread out to bleach, the first may be taken up, washed out and rinsed.”

Goo And...Well, Poo

Stains were as problematic then as they are today. Chalk was often used on grease and oil, and lemon and onion juice were favorites for lightening stains. Alcohol was, even then, suggested for grass stains, as was kerosene. Kerosene was also used for removing blood stains. Hot coals, wrapped in a clean rag, were set against garments to remove wax. Milk was supposed to get rid of urine stains and smells, as well as fruit stains. Of all things, human urine was favored as a bleaching agent; this technique was used well into the 20th century, and probably did work—urine contains ammonia, after all. Hog manure was sometimes used for the same purpose. And there was no better bleach than a little lemon juice and a sitting in the sun. Sometimes clothes were also “blued;” a squeeze of blue dye was added to the rinsing water to make whites appear more bright.

To prevent dyes from fading (they were even more apt to do that in the 19th century), a little borax was sometimes added to the water to maintains reds; vinegar was suggested for pinks and greens, and wheat bran was suggested for all other colors. “If you wish to take the color entirely out of a garment that has become somewhat faded, boil it in cream of tartar water. A perfectly while garment will be the result,” Home & Health advised. A teacup of lye was often suggested for keeping blacks black and most Victorian manuals suggest washing silk in gasoline or kerosene.

Starch was considered a necessity for most washable clothes in the 19th century. Wrinkles were a sign of a slovenly life, and starch helped keep wrinkles away longer. Starch also made ironing a little easier. Wheat, potato gratings, and rice were popular makings of starch—for most starch was still made at home. Most Victorian manuals suggest using sugar instead of starch on laces; the sugar was added to the last rinse, and the lace was dried between white cloths and sandwiched in an old book to dry flat. “Very delicate lace may be wound around a glass jar or bottle,” Home & Health suggested, “then washed...leaving it on the glass jar till dry.”

Hanging, Pressing, And Other Medieval Tortures

Once the clothes were soaked, treated for stains, washed, rinsed, etc., they couldn’t be thrown into the dryer—they were laid down on clean grass or bushes, or hung on a line. Since the weather, passing carriages, and animals might take a perfectly clean piece of laundry and quickly make it dirty again, every women tried to have the clothes as dry as possible before setting it out to dry. In the winter, the attic was often used for hanging laundry, although every Victorian manual I’ve ever read insists that clothes hung outside are more clean.

Early in the 19th century, most women had to wring their clothes out by hand, but by mid–century, wringing machines were very common. To get as much water out of the garment as possible, it was stuck between the wringer’s two rollers, and then a hand crank was turned. Then, and only then, were the clothes set out to dry or hung on the laundry line.

Virtually all clothing had to be ironed. If you’ve never picked up a flat (or “sad”) iron of the 19th century, next time you see one in an antique store, do try to. I guarantee they are a lot heavier than the iron you use at home! Such irons were set on the kitchen range to heat; several irons were necessary for efficient work, since they cooled fairly quickly. There were also additional, specialty irons; the most popular were used for smoothing out bows and bonnet strings (called tally or Italian irons), for puffy sleeves (called French or mushroom irons), and for making flutes or pleats (called fluting irons).

Later, gas irons were available, which made the task a little less time consuming. In all cases, however, before steam irons were invented, a bowl of water (often scented with lavender) was kept nearby to help get wrinkles out. With the fingers or a clean hand–held whisk broom, water was sprinkled onto the clothes just before an iron was taken to them

Red dyes, which were more likely to fade quickly, were difficult enough to wash, but care also had to be taken when ironing them. Whenever possible, household guides of the 19th century suggested, red items shouldn’t be ironed at all. The Household Ladies Cyclopedia of 1886, among other household guides, had special ironing instructions for calico dresses, too. “Never iron a calico dress on the right side: if ironed smoothly on the wrong side there will be no danger of white spots and gloss...”

The Rise of Machinery

In 1907, Home & Health claimed that in Europe, it was “becoming customary to provide public washing–houses, where, for a nominal sum, any housewife can go to do her family washing. Modern appliances are provided, and the work can be done there more cheaply and thoroughly than at home.” The beginnings of the modern coin–op! Not only did this make the laundry process easier (although one has to wonder how women managed to lug their household laundry to and fro), this also prevented another problem: The wash–clothes smelling like whatever was cooked that day. Many women had no wash area but their kitchen, and many Victorian manuals read something like Practical Housekeeping: “Do not have friend or broiled fish. The smell sticks, and the clothes will not be sweet...do not have spinach, pease, string––beans, or apple–sauce...”

When a family could afford to hire a laundress—surely the aspiration of every Victorian wife—linen and clothing were also sometimes marked with the wearer’s initials or the family name. Ever wonder how they managed to make the ink stay, long before wash–proof markers were invented? Home & Health tells us: “Stiffen with cold starch a space just large enough to take the name, thus making the fabric like paper to write upon. After writing, press with a hot iron.”

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Whew! The woman’s work is done....right? Not right. Now the laundry area and the laundry equipment had to be cleaned! While modern machinery may have made washing clothes easier, it also made clean–up more difficult.

The rollers of wringers usually needed cleaning because they picked up dye from colored clothes. To solve this problem, most manuals suggest rubbing them with a rag doused with kerosene or gasoline. In addition, all moving parts on the wringer, and later the washing machine, had to be carefully oiled. A smart woman also made sure that all the machinery was wiped down until it was dry, less it rust or seize.

The “covers” for ironing board were usually starchy and sometimes sticky after ironing, so these had to be removed and replaced. The irons themselves often became sticky or rusty from starch; one suggested way for cleaning them was to wait till they cooled just a tad, then place a handful of salt onto a piece of paper and rub the iron over it briskly. Another cleaning method was to wipe beeswax or paraffin against a hot iron, then rub the iron against a clean rag. The Household Ladies Cyclopedia suggested rubbing irons with some sand paper from time to time to make sure they’d slide smoothly over cloth.

If the washing was done inside, the floors in the wash area had to be mopped or swept down, and all the washing basins had to be cleaned.

And then, perhaps, a woman was lucky enough to plop down and relax! The entire washing procedure usually took all day long, although every women tried to get the bulk of the work done before the heat of the day set in; hence the old rhyme “This is the way we wash our clothes, early Monday morning!” It was usually late afternoon or evening before the laundry was put away, and in larger households, or where washing was done less often than weekly, the ironing had to wait for another day.

Now, don’t you just wanna kiss the Maytag man??

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07/25/2015