Vigo County Historical Society

Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - October 7, 1984
By Richard C. Tuttle

Washboard made doing laundry a breeze

Wash day blues were really just that back at the turn of the century before this marvelous invention -- the roller bearing wash board by Hobards -- now on display at the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley.

Imagine what the weekly wash was prior to that time -- washing in a creek on a rock, hitting the clothes with another rock. That, of course, is stretching time a bit, as there were wooden and galvanized wash tubs in the 1800s, and wooden roll wringers, and a wooden tub with hand-operated paddles.

But the hard-to -clean clothing had to be scrubbed on a board, and this was definitely an improvement over anything prior to 1905, the patent date on this wooden roller wash board.

Other than the name at the top of the board where the soap was kept, the information reads...clean clothes with less labor than any other board. Manf'd by Abingdon Mfg. Co., Abingdon, Ill. Pat. Sept. 5, 1905

The board measures 12 inches by 22 inches, about the same size as the later metal wash boards. Development of methods to clean clothing at home ran a bit ahead of food preservation at home, or in other words, improvements in keeping clean developed more rapidly than preserving foods.