LAUNDERING IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS
Another mid-century housewife-type drudgery would be doing the family laundry. Only the more well-to-do would enjoy the luxury of owning one of the new-fangled automatic washers and dryers. Everyone else would have used a wringer-type machine.
The electric wringer washer had been introduced in 1907. Up into the late 1960s, a machine -such as the Maytag Master seen here- was what many American mothers used to clean the family laundry.
Drawing from the Maytag Company
The wringer washer was manually filled with water, using a garden hose. With dirty laundry in place inside the tub of the machine and detergent added, an agitator lever, or button, would be flipped "on." Mom could agitate the clothes for as long as desired, but there was no "automatic" setting (some wringer washers did had timers).
When the clothes had been agitated sufficiently, every piece had to be run between the two rubber rollers of the wringer apparatus. Many a time, someone would get their hand or arm caught in the wringer, causing an emergency situation. The articles of clothing would then go into a separate tub of rinse water and then be run though the wringer a second time. With this completed, everything would need to be hung out to dry on the typical, backyard clothes line.
With clothes all dried and taken down, mom would then have to spend at least a couple more hours ironing everything. With all that was entailed with homemaking in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, is it any wonder that it was unusual for any one's mom to work a regular job back then?
The Model S, the first automatic washing machine, was introduced -by South Bend, Indiana's Bendix Company- in 1937. However, automatic machines, which laundered clothes and then spun them nearly dry, would not be commonplace for years to come.
In fact, it would take until the end of World War II for the major appliance manufacturers to introduce their first automatic (sans wringer) models; Sears-Kenmore and Frigidaire in 1947...Whirlpool in 1948. It would take nearly two additional decades for the automatic washer and dryer combo to be a standard fixture in the typical American home.
The wringer washer was manually filled with water, using a garden hose. With dirty laundry in place inside the tub of the machine and detergent added, an agitator lever, or button, would be flipped "on." Mom could agitate the clothes for as long as desired, but there was no "automatic" setting (some wringer washers did had timers).
When the clothes had been agitated sufficiently, every piece had to be run between the two rubber rollers of the wringer apparatus. Many a time, someone would get their hand or arm caught in the wringer, causing an emergency situation. The articles of clothing would then go into a separate tub of rinse water and then be run though the wringer a second time. With this completed, everything would need to be hung out to dry on the typical, backyard clothes line.
With clothes all dried and taken down, mom would then have to spend at least a couple more hours ironing everything. With all that was entailed with homemaking in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, is it any wonder that it was unusual for any one's mom to work a regular job back then?
The Model S, the first automatic washing machine, was introduced -by South Bend, Indiana's Bendix Company- in 1937. However, automatic machines, which laundered clothes and then spun them nearly dry, would not be commonplace for years to come.
In fact, it would take until the end of World War II for the major appliance manufacturers to introduce their first automatic (sans wringer) models; Sears-Kenmore and Frigidaire in 1947...Whirlpool in 1948. It would take nearly two additional decades for the automatic washer and dryer combo to be a standard fixture in the typical American home.
