Housewifery - Laundries

A classmate of mine from Stephenville sent me this tidbit, and I thought I’d share it with you. This recipe was given by an Alabama grandmother to her granddaughter, a new bride, and it was found in a Bible. Here it is, just as it was written with spelling and all.

“WASHING CLOTHES: Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water. Sort things, make 3 piles 1 pile white, 1 pile colored, 1 pile work britches and rags. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water. Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch. Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch. Hang old rags on fence. Spread tea towels on grass. Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water. Turn tubs upside down. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.”

My friend suggested that we should paste this over our washer and dryer. And the next time when we think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. He feels that the first thing each morning we should run and hug our washer and dryer, also our toilet---those two-holers used to get mighty cold!

Glossary: For you non-southerners - wrench means rinse; pert means lively; britches are pants.

So here’s a little bit more about doing laundry. Before washing machines or coin-operated laundromats, people who could not afford to have their maids do their laundry, cleaned their clothes in those tubs of hot water mentioned above. Now, when I say tub, I remember as a child doing the laundry in the bath tub, rather than on a fire in the back yard. Much time was spent rubbing clothing with a washboard.

What about washboards? When were they invented? Well, there’s no easy answer to that. How can we guess when someone first cut notches in a piece of wood to scrub their clothing in the cold running water of the creek rather than using a flat river rock?

In Northern England there was a tradition of washing bats with ridged surfaces. There were also boards with smooth surfaces and, except for their handles, allowed them to be used as beaters, much like washboards. Many decoratively carved washing bats were found across Scandinavia, the Baltic countries, and other parts of Europe. They had enough texture on the surface to rival grooved washboards. Boards were also used by washerwomen in Italy before the 19th century, and tilted boards on legs called washing stocks were used in England, but these had no ridges.

There was also something called a dolly which looked like a three-legged milk stool with a broomstick handle. It was also called a dolly-legs, dolly-pegs, peggy, or maiden, in different parts of Britain.

There were also metal cones on a handle called possers in England and plungers in America. Some people used sticks with grooved backs of wood on the end called ponches (for punching the clothing). The metal cone possers used suction to drive the water through the dirty clothing. Some had perforations to help the water circulate.

These laborious domestic machines seem to have inspired many later 20th century writers to wax nostalgic about them, but take it for me, using a washboard on your knees beside a bath tub was absolutely no fun at all!

Hannah Glasse’s 1760 manual for servants seems to say that laundry maids didn’t need much instruction, since they were people brought up to do it from childhood, for “every woman teaches her children to wash.” Washerwomen were the bottom of the heap as for as servants were concerned, and all the finer clothing was the responsibility of the lady’s maid.

Now whether you have a washing machine in your home or you travel to the laundromat, be grateful that you don’t have to sink to your knees over a tub on a fire or over the bath tub to do your laundry!

Here’s a recipe for homemade laundry soap:

1/3 bar Fels Naptha (Fels-Naptha is a brand of bar laundry soap. It is manufactured by and is a trademark of the Dial Corporation) or other type of bar soap
½ cup washing soda
½ cup borax powder

(You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size)

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours, and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.