How Laundry in the Eighteenth Century Helped Prevent Disease
Deadly and incurable diseases were a part of everyday life in the eighteenth century. Fortunately, laundry procedures at the time helped save lives. Laundry was a major part of health and hygiene at home, in military camps and in hospitals. Laundresses, without understanding the science, adopted habits that prevented disease. Doing laundry in the eighteenth […]
Poem – The Woman’s Labor
A few years ago I stumbled into a poem. At the time I did not realize that Mary Collier, the woman who wrote this poem was, herself, a poor washer woman. An early self taught woman with a voice, and a hard life. It was done as a rebuttal. She felt that Stephen Duck, a […]
The Laundrymaid – Clear Starching
A transcription from John Perkins “Laundry Maid -Every Woman Her Own House-keeper; Or, The Ladies’ Library, Containing the Cheapest and Most Extensive System of Cookery Ever Offered to the Public. … Also, The Family Physician; Or, A Complete Body of Domestic Medicine.” 1796 This we conceive to be an article of so much use in female economy, […]
Forget The Wash Board
Washboards With Ridges The old timey ridged washboard was not used to do laundry until the 19th century. Bucking, clapping and heating laundry is very effective when laundering linens. Wash boards with ridges are something that came to the United States long after the Revolutionary War. In France and Italy there are painting’s of women […]