June 28, 1987
By Jan Buffington
Vigo County Historical Society
Washday hints
Wringer washer eased dirty job
From the time mankind started washing clothing in streams until the mid-1800s, only small advances were made in the washing process.
The task of wringing water out of the clothes never hanged. One grasped the article of clothing and twisted it and squeezed it as hard as cone could until most of the water was wrung out or one’s arms got tired, whichever came first.
Articles in magazines and pamphlets gave the homemaker hints to lessen the volume of wash but nothing was done to alleviate the task of water extraction.
One such publication was “The Household” by Barbara Brandt. She advised the elimination of ruffles and dressing less in white and more in printed cottons. She recommended having “a large supply of undergarments--separate one for the day and night, so that these may be changed as often as once a week at least.”
Other helpful hints were to use colored tablecloths and that mothers should make their children wear rubber bibs to protect their clothing during meals. Good advice, but washday still came every Monday.
Each piece of laundry had to be wrung out at least twice--after washing and after rinsing. Some were wrung out as many as three more times. Some items were boiled and some were starched. Others were placed in a bluing rinse. The article of clothing had to be wrung--by hand--each time.
Heavy articles were put in a loosely woven basket and allowed to drip for a while. Hand-wrung clothes also took a long time to dry. It’s no wonder that the laundry took all day. In the winter, hand-wrung clothes took days to dry on the drying rack.
The hand-cranked wringer was invented in the mid-1800s. The frames of these wringers were made of wood and metal. The rollers were fashioned from wood, rubber or a combination of the two materials. Some wringers were made to fit on the edge of a tub or boiler. Some were mounted directly on a wooden or metal tub.
Toward the end of the century, inventors began to improve wringers. Belts were attached to the rollers and driven by water power from a faucet or a motor powered by gasoline or electricity. These were advertised as “self-working” and capable of cutting washday labor in half.
This week’s historical treasure is on a collapsible washtub stand in the tool room of the museum. It is a hand cranked wringer, mounted in a metal washtub.
Both rollers are made of wood. The top roller is grooved and the bottom one is smooth. The tension springs are controlled by a removable turn screw located on each side of the rollers. Inscribed on the side are the words: “Hawken Washer, Lowell Mfg. Co., Erie, Penn.” The date of this wringer has been placed around 1890.
The wringer was the first major time- and labor-saving device developed for the laundry since the invention of soap.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.