Recently, as I was silently bemoaning the mundane task of washing, drying and folding my daunting pile of dirty laundry, I eyed my high-end front-loading laundry devices requiring only soap and the pushing of a button. My grandmother’s laundry tasks were not so easy, and I wondered how those hard working women managed to keep clean clothing for so many children?
Before the invention of the modern washing machine, laundry was the single most arduous task in a woman’s work week. Clothing was usually hauled on Mondays to a nearby water source such as a creek or well for the necessary washing. Continuing today, more women around the world still wash their family’s clothing by hand than by machine.
The herbs yucca, reetha, soapwort, or honeylocust were utilized to help get fabrics clean before laundry soap became invented by about 2800 BC in Babylon. Lye was formed by adding water to ashes and adding the resultant run off to animal fats to form a soft but caustic paste.
In more modern times, women washing their laundry at home did so with soft lye soap by utilizing a washboard and four metal tubs filled with water heated on a wood stove. In order to complete the washing for a family of six, a woman would need to fetch at least 400 pounds of water to fully wash, rinse, starch, and treat the weekly wardrobe for her family.
However it was done through history, laundry was the by far the most arduous household task for a woman, a gruelling backbreaking enterprise that aged her prematurely through hauling laundry and water, scrubbing on a washboard with casutic lye soap, wringing, rinsing, hanging to dry, starching and pressing. Her knuckles enlarged, her hands chapped, and she developed arthritis from the extreme hot and cold temperatures of the weekly chore that encompassed an entire day to wash, and a second day to press and fold. Mothers with children in cloth diapers had an even bigger load, as well as the added safety concern with young children underfoot with the scalding water and hot irons for pressing.
Despite the back breaking nature of the task, when groups of women met at their local water source to scrub laundry together they shared a social time, building bonds of connection over soiled collars and wool drawers. Young children played together while their mothers shared in local gossip. With the modern arrival of the personal home washer and dryer, women have developed new, more restful ways to continue that weekly connection with other mothers and grandmothers.
I’ve realized how blessed I am to be living in this modern time when everyone can maintain their family’s clothing with one push of a button. To my knowledge, the laundry folding machine hasn’t yet been invented, but I don’t have arthritis in my hands, my back doesn’t ache, I can choose from a variety of readily available laundry soaps, and my family has a wide variety of clean clothing to choose from. Monday morning is a great time to connect with other mothers to discuss our figurative dirty laundry over a shared a cup of coffee, with no scrubbing required.
Beecher, Catherine E. Miss Beecher’s Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1873, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55734/55734-h/55734-h.htm. Accessed 10 Apr. 2022.
Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York, Henry Holt, 1980.