Laundry: Wash Day Woes

Laundry Hanging to Dry

There are few people I know who actually enjoy doing the laundry. Sure they may not mind doing parts of the process but I have yet to encounter one person who just lives for sorting, washing, folding, and putting away their family’s laundry. My own husband would rather scrub toilets and pull weeds then sort socks and put away folded clothes. He hates it with all his being because “It’s just a never ending cycle and it takes to long.”

Looking back to the mid-1800’s we see that attitudes towards laundry were very much the same as they are today but more for different reasons.

Catherine Beecher, author of several 19^th century domestic manuals, called washday “The American housekeeper’s hardest problem.” She even went as far as to personally advocate, though unsuccessfully, for its removal from the household routine.  Some of the general complaints associated with laundry included but were not limited to tender hands, aching backs, stiff necks, burns, emotional and physical exhaustion.

At a time with no electricity or running water, even a basic hand-washing took an amazing amount of effort and precious time.  For just one load of laundry to be washed, one boiling and one rinse, it took nearly fifty gallons of water. That much water weighs around four hundred pounds. That's the same weight as a piano or a motorcycle! This water had to be transported, in all manners of weather, to the wash area from a well, pump, or creek. Often it was hauled in buckets that could weight well over forty pounds when full. 

On a side note I can personally attest to the utter misery of hauling water in the cold. I remember spilling it down the front of my dress on my first of about ten  trips out to the pump.  The weather was frigid and by the time I  done I was soaked clear through and couldn't feel my thighs.  Talk about living history...

19th Century Wood Cut



Hauling water to start the wash was only the first part of the day. Once the first load had been boiled the wet clothes had to be wrung out. Prior to the civil war wringers were in production in the Unites States however most women were still wringing laundry out by hand until well after the war had ended. Wringing clothing out caused sore wrists, rough hands, and blisters from the chemicals that were used in the process. 

After that the still damp laundry was then lugged outside, individually picked up and hung to dry up on a line or laid out on bushes to dry. If the weather was damp or cold the clothing would be hung inside though not all the time. Once it was dry, the laundry was taken down and ironed. Ironing typically occurred the day after washday and took up majority of the day.

Ironing was not an optional finishing touch. It was necessary to iron your clothing in order for them to be considered clean. Heavier irons that weighted eight or ten pounds made work go much faster but were harder on the person who was doing the work.

 

To better understand what a typical laundry day was like, it is important to understand that on wash day, every other household chore suffered.  Meals on washdays were whatever was easiest to prepare. It might be reheated stew from the night before or some other simple dish. All other household tasks were put on the back burner and “a good husband would eat a cold dinner on washday and not grumble.”  A few lines from a cartoon by the famous British caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson might just say it best: 
"Ah! My Old Friend I wish you had called at some more convenient time but this is washing day- I have nothing to give you but cold Fish, cold Tripe & cold potatoes- you smell soap suds a mile!"

One of the biggest misconceptions I have run into with laundry is this idea of it being 100% the woman’s job. That men would never be caught doing "women's work." This isn’t entirely so. We know from journals and letters that although women primarily did do the wash men helped when they were needed. It was not at all uncommon for a man to haul water and cut additional wood to help feed the fires on washday.  There are accounts of men doing the laundry themselves in a wide variety of situations.

Many of the surviving accounts come to us from journals and letter written during the American Civil War. Captain James Love, who was serving with the 8^th Kansas Infantry at the time, wrote in a letter to his finance Molly about how they had stopped to rest after several days of marching. While stopped in Murfeesboro, Tennessee on September 2, 1862 he briefly mentioned in the letter that all the men washed their clothes while they were there because they had a review and “looked very fierce after our trip.”

Another solider who served with the 12^th Indiana Volunteers, Charles F. Nelson, recorded in his diary that on April 6, 1863 “This morning still cool but pleasant. Done my washing. Received a letter.”

No matter who did the laundry one thing was sure. Laundry took up the majority of the day. However, the topic of "what day" laundry was done on can still be a of heated debate.

Most of us are familiar with the rhyme made popular by Little House in the Big Woods.

"Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday." This described Mrs. Ingalls' weekly work schedule and who's to say it's not true but was it true for every "pioneer" or "1800's family" as some would have you believe.

My next blog post will go more into the particulars of doing the wash but just know one of the first things that most domestic advice books recommend that you do with your laundry before you actually wash it is to soak it for 12 to 24 hours.

Now, some claimed that it was best for families to change their clothes on Sunday so their dirty clothes from the week could be soaked before the dirt had time to set into the fabric. Others suggested that Tuesday night might make a better day to start laundry. That way, Sunday could be saved as a true day of rest. Still not everyone rested on Sunday.

One independent California woman recalled that her mother “said she’d wash on the day she wanted to, so she did!” I have found that those in more settled regions tended to start their laundry on Monday or Tuesday- but not everybody.

It really just depended on what worked for the individual.



McKinnis House Located outside of Findlay, Ohio

For example: I worked as a Living History Coordinator for an 1847 homestead in Northwest Ohio. We portrayed the Scotch-Irish McKinnis family who originally built the house. Now in that particular circumstance we did our soaking on Sunday. How did I come to that conclusion?

The family belonged to and were very active in the local Presbyterian Church. In the early to mid19th century the particular church they belonged to had very strict policies against working or doing any business that could wait on a Sunday. Exceptions to the rule where made for feeding livestock, light cooking, and on rare occasions tending to the harvest. The day was to be a day of rest.

It is well documented in the county where the house is that in the early to mid-1840’s members of the church were heavily fined and even temporarily excommunicated for working or engaging in trade on Sundays. Laundry is not considered a light chore by any means.

In other words beware the so called "one size fits all" impressions and don't be afraid to question what you've been told. The answers you find might surprise you!

SOURCES USED

Photographs used are either my own or belong to the public domain.

A full list of sources will be listed after the "Laundry Series" is complete but I will provide a list upon request.

 

Laundry: The Final Frontier

As a living historian, I get more then my fair share of questions about what life was like “back in the olden days.” The vast majority of the questions I get have to do with everyday life, the most frequent being “Are you hot in that?”

A more constructive question I’m often ask is usually along the lines of “How do you clean your clothes and how often?”  When I first started to portray life in the mid 1800’s I would have replied with something like “Well with strong lye soap and a scrub board of course!”

And why would that not be true? I had seen that very thing portrayed over and over again. In movies and at local museums we’ve all seen it done.  Heck, I even did the laundry like the ladies did way back then! My local museum said that it took most of the day to do but was pretty simple. All you needed was water, a scrub board, a wringer, soap, and in no time you would be washing the wash like a real pioneer lady!

But things changed once I stopped regurgitated what I had been told and started asking questions about what I was doing.

For example, I noticed that using the scrub board “properly” on every item was extremely time consuming, used a lot of soap, and was particularity hard on the clothing. Holes quickly developed, notions were lost, and in no time my knuckles quickly went raw. Combine this with the “strong lye soap” and I was miserable!

The experience, though painful, caused me to ask questions. Did they really scrub every garment? Did laundry soap have to be lye soap? Where did they hang laundry in the winter?

Luckily dear reader, these questions led to research and to some answers that threw everything I thought I knew right out the window.

My next few blog posts will be all about the laundry. The who, what, where, when, and how’s of mid-19^th century laundry practices. We will explore equipment, stain removal, and how to put present a laundry impression that is simple yet true to the period.   

If your planning on following this blog for the next few months remember that it's important to keep an open mind. You may not agree with everything I found but maybe that will inspire you to go on your own adventure.

Remember, research is a lot like going to see the physiologist. Unless you are willing to accept and make positive changes then there is really no point in doing it.