Household Matters: The Laundry

The amount of washing done at home depends on circumstances and occasions. It may be difficult for the lady who lives in a flat in one of the big apartment buildings always to wash a great many clothes, since she cannot dry the wash on the roof if the building is a towering one of many stories; while it may be easy for the lady who lives in the country, or in a villa in the suburbs, to do a great deal of washing, since it is a simple matter to hang it out on the roof or in the garden.

In many houses built in the modern European style there is a special place for the laundry, in which you will find an apparatus for heating water by electricity, coal, or gas, a washing table, and a zinc tub with a tap, like a bathtub, used for washing and for boiling clothes. The housewife can now equip the laundry room of her house with the latest inventions needed for washing and ironing clothes.

The Dast, or Boiler

This is the old-fashioned type of copper boiler that was used in times gone by. The water is usually heated by setting the fire beneath it or in a hollow cylinder, the fuel being ordinarily coal or wood; and these boilers can consume every kind of rubbish, refuse, and debris to be found in the house. After use the boiler should be cleaned well, dried, and covered with its lid — and before the fire is lit it must be filled with fresh water, and the water must not be emptied out of it before the fire is put out.

The Copper Heaters Used for Baths

There is also a kind of copper apparatus used in small houses to heat the bath water on the same floor of the house or on a floor below it. It is a copper boiler filled with water from a tap above it, with gas lit underneath. When the water grows hot, the tap is closed and another tap is opened, connected to a pipe leading to the bath, so that the hot water flows from the boiler to the bath, while as it runs down it is replaced by fresh cold water from another tap above the boiler.

Washing Machines

Mechanical washing machines run either on gas or on electricity. At the present time we find that the machines run by electricity are heavier in expense than their counterparts run by gas. Most of them are fitted with a wringer, and some are fitted with a second tub in which the clothes are rinsed. All washing machines contain an internal agitator that makes the water churn around the clothes and penetrate them, so that they come clean without any need of rubbing. The lady should choose the machine of simple construction, with a crank handle that she can turn by hand. In these machines there are fans that revolve and dry the clothes with air, and in some of them there are metal baskets; most machines of this kind are used only in large houses.

As for the essential materials needed for the wash, they are:

1 — Water. Water is the first thing the housewife needs, and it must be clean, fresh, and soft.

2 — Soap. This must be of a good kind.

3 — Soda. It must be used with precision and caution, for too much of it ruins clothes; it is very useful for cleaning dirty clothes soiled with grease or oils.

4 — Salt. Used for cleaning and for preserving the colors in colored clothes.

5 — Ammonia. Useful in washing woolen clothes or those made of flannel; it must be used with precision and caution.

6 — Starch. Used in ironing clothes; it is well known and widespread.

7 — Vinegar. Exactly like salt, it benefits clothes by preserving their colors and restoring the luster of the dyes to them when they fade; it is mixed with water. The housewife should note that clothes needing mending or special attention — such as the removal of stains and the like — must be attended to before washday.

The linens, bed sheets, and table covers should be separated together; the woolen, silk, and colored clothes are separated by themselves; the handkerchiefs are likewise separated by themselves (the white together and the colored together); while the kitchen towels and the things that are dirty or soiled with oils and grease are separated together and boiled.

The washing process, whether done by hand or by the special machine, is one and the same. Its basis is to immerse the clothes and the other things to be washed in soap, and then to remove the dirt by rubbing and agitating them in the water. There are, however, certain differences: some clothes must be boiled, some must be soaked in water mixed with soap and not rubbed, and some need much rubbing — and here I shall explain this in what follows:

They must be soaked overnight in water, so that they may be cleaned easily and rid of the dirt clinging to them. When they are made ready for washing they must be wrung out well, especially the collars and the whites; then they are washed in hot water to which soap powder and a little borax have been added. Every part of them must be covered with soap and then rubbed well, until the soap penetrates every part of the piece; in this way the dirt dissolves and comes away from it, with rinsing in water from time to time. The washboard is very useful in cases of washing large things such as bed sheets. If the housewife uses a washing machine, she must follow the instructions particular to it — every machine has its own instructions.

After the whites are washed and wrung, they are put into the copper boiling dast, which must be full of hot water kept at the boil, to which a little soap powder or soap shavings and a little borax or ammonia have been added. The boiling dast must not be crammed with clothes, or the water will be unable to penetrate them, and they may perhaps burn by scorching against the bottom of the dast. Each batch of clothes put into it must not stay in it longer than twenty minutes; the housewife will observe that leaving clothes in the boiling dast a long time turns them yellow. Clothes must never be boiled before they are washed. And as the lady puts a portion of the clothes into the dast, she also puts in a quantity of borax and soap. After the boiling they are rinsed well, then blued, and starch is applied to them (if they are to be ironed with it); then they are dried or mangled, then folded up in readiness for ironing.

Woolens

All woolen garments, or those made of flannel, are liable to shrink in the wash, so the lady must take great care with them and not wash them in very hot water. It is best for her to use lukewarm water in which soap powder and borax have been dissolved. She must not rub them or wring them, but should leave them to soak up the soapy water, as we have said, for a short while, then soap them again and immerse them in the water, then take them out of it, soap them, and immerse them once more, and so on until they are clean. They must be soaped on all sides, and after they are clean they are rinsed well in slightly hot water until no trace of soap remains in them. The water must be changed often, and they must not be left wet, but dried as quickly as possible.

White woolens must be washed by themselves and not washed with gray or colored ones. In short, like or similar colors are washed together.

The lady should use good soap, for poor soap contains soda, which is ruinous to fine and delicately woven clothes. And she puts a little bluing into the last water, where the white clothes are rinsed.

Then wash them and dry them with sawdust.
And woolens that are washed in the water in which dried beans have been boiled come out of the wash soft and beautiful.