Ah, Monday… A day of rest… Rest of the laundry, rest of the house and rest of all the other stuff I put off through the week & weekend!
Washing is as easy as throwing your dirty clothes on the floor, well for me I like clothes hampers, gathering them up a few days later, tossing them into the machine, and pressing a few buttons, right?
While that may be the standard of washing in many locations today, I’m sure you’re aware that this hasn’t always been – and still isn’t in many places – the reality.
Indeed, early civilizations often found themselves laboriously washing clothes down by the local river, a tiring yet effective method still practiced in many areas today, where one can observe extensive washing taking place at popular locations including the banks of the Ganges and Lake Victoria.
Yet while this ancient laundry method is still widely practiced and unlikely to fall out of favor anytime soon, there’s no doubt that many other washing methods, nourished by varying degrees of popularity and effectiveness, have emerged throughout the ages.
Water is the source of life:
It’s no secret why most Ancient Civilizations developed around at least one source of water. Vital for a number of aspects of everyday life, including hydration, food supply, transportation, and crop irrigation, water systems were of course also used extensively for cleaning both people and the clothes they wore.
Garments were typically beaten over rocks, scrubbed with abrasive sand or stone, and pounded underfoot or with wooden implements. Poorer members of the community likely had little variety when it came to clothing choice, and many garments may have remained largely unwashed as they were passed down through the generations.
As with many other pursuits, the Romans took this basic concept of washing and catapulted it into a commercial industry of unprecedented scale. Following the shift from homespun fabrics to more cheaply produced garments that allowed for larger wardrobes and more frequent toga changes, efficient laundry became a necessity. The demand was even further bolstered by the importance the Romans placed upon hygiene and physical appearance, and eventually the Roman fullers (cleaners who dyed, washed and dried clothes of all varieties) became indispensable to Roman life.
Before you celebrate the Roman’s ingenuity and liken their fuller shops to modern day laundromats, however, you should probably know that they washed the clothes they received in human urine collected from public restrooms.
Although revolting by modern hygiene standards, urine, containing ammonia, was an important cleaning agent not only in Roman times, but also in Medieval Europe, when it was referred to as chamber-lye and commonly used as a stain-remover to dissolve grease, loosen dirt, and bleach yellowing fabrics.
If you’re still convinced there must have been something preferable to human urine, you may be surprised to learn that soap, itself boasting an interesting and tumultuous history, itself wouldn’t become widely available until the 19th-century, leaving little option for the maids and cleaners of the day.
As culture developed, population grew, and cities became booming urban centers, a river bed and a pile of rocks were no longer sufficient for many people. Several items designed to aid with the washing process therefore become commonplace, including large wooden washtubs and dolly-tubs or posing-tubs – tall tubs in which clothes were beaten and stirred with a plunger. Washing in this period could be incredibly physically demanding and was often undertaken by poor servants and washerwomen on an irregular basis in a grueling process known as the “great wash”.
Indeed, the length and intensity of the washing process (the entire thing often took a few days involving a pre-wash, a 24 hour soaking period, a wash that took about 15 hours on account of the need to continually reheat the lye, a further wash of the lye-soaked linen, and finally a rinsing and drying process), coupled with the fact that people took pride in owning enough linen to avoid the need for frequent washes, made it preferable for households to wash everything at the same time every few weeks.
It certainly can’t have been an event that the washers of the time looked forward to!
The advent of the Industrial Revolution is when washing finally starts to accrue some more recognizable characteristics.
Indeed, the popular washboard, typically attributed to the Scandinavians, was greatly refined in 19th-century America following technological advances that saw the primitive rigid wooden frame improved with materials including fluted metal sheets and rubber. The washboard was small, portable, and effective, quickly propelling it to the status of household necessity. Its ease of use, coupled with the increasing accessibility and affordability of soap - fueled by society's growing awareness of health and hygiene - also helped to cement the notion of regular washing cycles.
This is evidenced by the popularity of the Monday wash day throughout the Victorian period, the logic being that clothes washed on Monday had plenty of time to be dried, pressed, aired and folded before Sunday.
As technological, scientific, and chemical advances continued to dominate the Victorian era, old methods of washing, at least throughout the English-speaking world and parts of Europe, were almost completely supplanted by revolutionary implements, soaps, and washing powders. This led to the first electric-powered washing machine in 1908 and the first automatic washing machines in 1951.
Thank Goodness, today, the washing machine remains a mainstay of many modern homes, along with countless other laundry tools designed to simplify and improve the quality of washing, including electronic driers, irons, and various clotheslines and other hanging devices.
Gotta go do my laundry... push a few buttons, wait and fold/hang clothes.
I'm so glad I was born in the modern times.
Nana
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