http://explorelunenburg.ca/wash-day-in-victorian-lunenburg.html
We still complain about doing laundry even though we have machines that do most
of the work for us. Why is doing laundry still such a chore?
150 years ago, 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. Many women forewent the machine until
the 20th century because it had a tendency to tear clothes or leave rust marks. The
clothes had to be soaked, rinsed several times, boiled, starched, blued or bleached,
wrung, then hung up to dry and ironed. “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!
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 like we 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, and 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. 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.”
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 maintain 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 white 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 for starch—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.”
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.
A mangler: often used to wring clothes
http://explorelunenburg.ca/wash-day-in-victorian-lunenburg.html
sadiron or flatiron
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, try to do
so. They are heavier than you’d expect. 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 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.
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.
http://www.vintageconnection.net/VictorianLaundry.htm