Washing Clothes: The Good Old Days

Across the Fence #380

Washing clothes for most people consists of taking the dirty clothes that have filled up the clothes basket, throw them in the washing machine, add some detergent, close the lid, turn the machine on, and let it go to work. When the washer shuts off and the buzzer sounds, you take the wet clothes out and throw them in the dryer, usually located right next to the washer. Turn it on and go do some other work or put your feet up and rest. When the dryer quits, take the clothes out, fold them up, and put them away. Very few people iron clothes these days.

Lets take a journey back to “the good old days” as some people like to call them. Lets go way back before electricity and wringer washing machines, back to the old scrub board. I know some of you remember them because you told me how you used them.

For those of you who are too young to remember what it was like to wash clothes in those days, let me tell you a little about it. I can’t report that I had any hands-on experiences, but I do remember watching as my mother and grandmother washed our dirty clothes. In the good old days, washday meant exactly that, it was an all-day job.

Lets talk about washboards first. A washboard was a tool designed for hand washing clothing. The traditional washboard was usually constructed with a rectangular wooden frame in which a series of ridges or corrugations were mounted. In the summer, washing was often done outside on the lawn. In the winter it was moved inside, usually in the kitchen area. The clothing was soaked in a tub of hot water with soap added, and then was rubbed by hand over those ridges to remove dirt. One practitioner of this art said they used P&G Soap, a brown-looking soap. Another said they used lye soap. There was also “Bluing Agent” to make the whites whiter and starch to make them stiffer. By the way, the water had to be heated on the wood stove and then carried and emptied into the large tubs. It was hard, back-breaking work. You often skinned your knuckles and could even take a chunk out of your hand if a piece of the aluminum or steel ribbing broke.

After rubbing the dirt out, the soap had to be wrung out by hand, unless you had a portable wringer that you could attach to the washtub. The wringer was turned by hand. Then the clothing was placed in a second tub of hot water used to rinse the clothes. You needed to wring the water out of them again.

Luckily for most people, scrub boards are mainly used as decorations and as musical instruments these days. We have a small, old scrub board in our laundry area next to a modern washer and dryer.

A great improvement over the scrub board was the advent of the wringer-washing machine. Some of the first ones were made of wood and had a wood handle that you moved back and forth to work the agitator located inside the tub. You can see these early washing machines if you visit Norkedalen near Coon Valley, Wisconsin.

Next came the gas-operated and electric wringer-washers. Finally, the machine provided the agitation to clean the clothes, but you still had to heat the water on the wood stove unless you had hot-running water in the house. You still had to run the wet clothes through the wringer attached to the washer too. The wringers, located over the basin, swung out to open the cover and swung back so the water drained back into the basin when you ran the wet clothes through them. You still needed a second tub of hot, clean water to rinse the clothes. It was still a lot of work and an all-day job.

Linda said that washing clothes was a special time when she would talk with her mom while helping with the washing. They washed in the basement and she would sit on the steps leading to the basement while they talked.

In those good old days, people didn’t throw the clean clothes in a dryer. They were carried in a basket out to the clothesline, where they were hung up to dry in the fresh air. First, the lines had to be wiped clean of dirt and any bird droppings. The clothes were fastened to the lines with clothes pins. If you wanted to conserve on clothes pins you arranged two items so they could share one clothes pin. Early wooden pins just pushed down on the clothes and later ones were spring-loaded.

If a rain shower suddenly appeared you had to run out and gather up all the clothes and take them inside where they were usually dumped on the kitchen table. In the winter, clothes would be frozen solid and were also spread out on the kitchen table to thaw out. Can’t you just picture a frozen shirt or bib overalls?

In the good old days, many clothes were also ironed before folding and putting them away. That was really a lot of work when you had to heat irons on the wood stove.

I think whoever said those were the good old days, never had to wash clothes by hand.

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