I was pondering the washing I have. It is nothing to what Nice Mrs Next Door has to deal with, she often is washing for half a dozen adults plus sundry little ones. And Mrs Next Door but Two has four children under 8, her washing line is never empty.
Then I thought of the washing my Great Grandmother would have known. I have lost the book I had on 'How to Do Laundry' which, I think, was printed @ WW1. The first washing machines, running on gas, were creeping in, but most ladies were still using coppers. I used to really enjoy dipping into it.
I was trying to remember how the washday should go. The day before washday you sorted the washing, doing all the mending and treating any stains. Clothes were expensive. It wasn't just the expense in money, many would be home made, like knitted socks, and also were a huge investment in time. If you had spent a week or two knitting the socks, then you were not going to do that again if you could save them with a few minutes darning. And you sewed on the buttons and mended any rips or tears. You treated any serious stains with a selection of home remedies that sounded very scary. I have enough trouble with ammonia, but there were all sorts of quite acidic concoctions recommended. I suspect some got rid of the stain, but also got rid of the clothing as well.
After checking over all the washing, you would clean the copper, fill it and lay a fire under it. You would prepare starch, soap and possibly blue for the next day. Then you would put everything that could be soaked into the copper overnight.
The next day - washday - the soaked clothes would be pulled out. The effort to drag out a waterlogged dress with as much material in it as some of the dresses you see in Victorian and Edwardian times must have been immense. Then the water was changed, the fire lit and grated soap added. Once the water was hot enough, clothes were put in to wash, in the order of cleanest first and scrubbed by hand. My hands are itching in sympathy at the thought of rubbing heavy material against a washboard, with heavy duty soap in hot water and no gloves. The water would be changed half way through for clean but slightly cooler water for fabrics that needed a cooler wash. Some washing would be boiled. Then it would all have to be rinsed, in two changes of water. Blue would be put in the second rinse for many items, there would be a small cloth bag of blue dye that would be swirled through the water to take away any yellow tinge from age or wear and brighten the colours. Having used an easy twin tub washing machine, just lugging the clothing from the washer to the spinner is a chore. It must have been hard work, and it would have been a miracle if the floor wasn't wet at the end. Some items would have been dipped in a starch solution before drying.
There was even an art to mangling - feeding the material between the mangle rollers folded so that the buttons would not be affected, or even taking all the buttons off before mangling. My grandmother had an electric mangle and I remember watching fascinated as she fed the items one by one through the rollers, sometimes twice, always folded with the buttons on the inside. At least she had two hands to feed the clothes in, rather than one hand with the other turning the handle. And then, heaven send it is a sunny day or heaps of steaming washing would be on the clothes airer for the rest of the week - or the clothes maiden as my grandmother called it.
No wonder so many Victorian Families sent their laundry out - it would have been a very worthwhile expense.
I feel very grateful indeed for my automatic washer. Also, I have failed colour sorting again, and the white polo shirts are once again grey.
1 comment:
My uncle still has my grandmother's mangle in the shed - I remember mangling the towels when they were wet to get the water out and then when they were dry instead of ironing! She only had a single tub washer, although my mother had a twin tub. Amazed to see that they are still sold some places...interesting memories!
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