Laundry history, washing clothes in middle ages, renaissance, tudor, restoration, colonial, georgian times

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en-GB"> <head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8" /><link rel="Alternate" title="Old and interesting" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/oldandinteresting" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/html1.css" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/layout1.css" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/extra.css" /><link rel="shortcut icon" href="/images/favicon.ico" /><meta name="msvalidate.01" content="0F6BF2EF6A2C10EC2C11FF3E234CAC22" /> <style type="text/css"> .style1 { background-color: #FFCC99; } </style> <title> Laundry history, washing clothes in middle ages, renaissance, tudor, restoration, colonial, georgian times </title></head> <body> <div id="content"> <div id="header"> <div id="title"> </div> <a href="/default.aspx"> <img src="/images/bg/lefttitle.jpg" alt="old and interesting" class="left" id="top" /></a> <img src="/images/bg/righttitle.jpg" alt="history of domestic objects, household antiques in use" class="right" /> </div> <div id="mainMenu"> <ul class="floatRight"> <li><a href="/default.aspx" title="Home"><strong>home</strong></a></li> <li><a href="/books.aspx" title="Books, writers, bibliography"><strong>books</strong></a></li> <li><a href="/contact.aspx" title="Contact by email"><strong>contact</strong></a></li> </ul> </div> <div id="page"> <div class="width22 floatLeft leftColumn"> <ul class="sideMenu"> <li class="here"> <br />     History of:<ul> <li><a href="/bread-peel.aspx">Bread peels</a></li> <li><a href="/history-butter-churns.aspx">Butter-making & churns </a></li> <li><a href="/vintage-electric-irons.aspx">Early electric irons</a></li> <li><a href="/history-feather-beds.aspx">Featherbeds, duvets, eiderdowns </a></li> <li><a href="/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx">Ironing & smoothing</a></li> <li><a href="/history-ironing-boards.aspx">Ironing boards</a></li> <li><a href="/history-of-laundry.aspx">Laundry - 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nips & tongs</a></li> <li><a href="/medieval-tablecloths.aspx">Tablecloths</a></li> <li><a href="/tinderbox.aspx">Tinderboxes</a></li> <li><a href="/washing-beetles-possing.aspx">Washing bats and beetles</a></li> <li><a href="/washing-dollies.aspx">Washing dollies</a></li> <li><a href="/sitemap.htm"><b>List of all articles</b></a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <ul class="sideMenu"> <li class="here">   </li> </ul> <br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/oldandinteresting"> <img src="images/bg/rss.jpg" class="floatLeft" style="font-style: italic" /></a>Subscribe to <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/oldandinteresting">RSS feed</a> or get <a href="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=918986&loc=en_US"> email</a> updates.</blockquote> <br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <i>An early-fifteenth-century ordinance forbidding the exclusion of common people from the wharves and stairs on the Thames bank [London] specifically mentions beating and washing clothes as standard activities at the river...<br /> ...Many Sienese fountains had a lavatoio (laundry trough] as a subsidiary basin ... provided with stones for washing clothes ... probably inclined slabs round the rim ...<br /> Roberta J. Magnusson, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080186626X?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=080186626X"> Water Technology in the Middle Ages</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=080186626X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /></i></blockquote> <br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <center> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809016060?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0809016060"> <img border="0" src="z first generations.jpg"></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0809016060" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /><br /> Carol Berkin, <i>First Generations: Women in Colonial America </i>, from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809016060?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0809016060"> Amazon.com</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0809016060" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> or <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0809016060?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0809016060"> Amazon UK</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=oldint-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0809016060" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /></center> </blockquote> <br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <i>The technique was different from anything we use. The pile of shirts, shifts and drawers, bed linen and table linen waiting to be dealt with were all white, and as their name...implies, made of linen. ... The linen was loosely arranged [in the] tub, the cleanest things at the top and the dirtiest things at the bottom. Then the lye was poured in, and the linen was left to soak. The normal household lye was made from wood ashes and urine...</i><br /> Lisa Picard <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1842127306?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1842127306"> <i>Restoration London: Everyday Life in the 1660s</i></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1842127306" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> </blockquote> <br /> <center> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </center><br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <center> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0773522336?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0773522336"> <img border="0" src="z tudor housewife.jpg"></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0773522336" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /><br /> Alison Sim, The Tudor Housewife, from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0773522336?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0773522336"> Amazon.com</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0773522336" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> or <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0750937742?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0750937742"> Amazon UK</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=oldint-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0750937742" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> </center> </blockquote ><br /> <blockquote class="palefullwidth"> <i>Chinese washerwomen pound their clothes with stones, as is done on the Continent in Europe, a method more suited to the stout cottons they wear themselves than to the delicate fabrics of Western Europe. </i> <br /> The Graphic, London, 1900</blockquote> <br /> </div> <div class="width78 floatRight"> <div class="maintext"> <h1> History of laundry </h1> <h3> Washing clothes and household linen: early laundry methods and tools</h3> <p> <img class="floatRight" alt="Tubs, water heating, beating linen, drying" title="Washday painting from Splendor Solis, 1531, Nuremberg" src="images/16th century laundry.jpg" /> Once upon a time a metal washboard and bar of hard soap with a tub of hot water was a new-fangled way of tackling laundry, though today it's a common picture of "old-fashioned" laundering. (Read about this on a page about the later <b><a href="/history-of-washing-clothes.aspx"> history of laundry in the 1800s</a></b>.) What went before? How did people wash clothes without the factory-made equipment and cleansing products of the 19th century? </p> <p> <i>This page is an introduction to the history of washing and drying household linen and clothing over several centuries: from medieval times up until the 19th century. It concerns Europe, North America, and the English-speaking world more than anywhere else. It's not only an overview; it's also a guide to the other laundry history pages on this website. The links take you to more detailed information and more pictures. Along the way you'll find answers to questions that OldandInteresting gets asked a lot - like, "Is it true people used to wash their clothes in urine?".</i> </p> <h3> Rivers, rocks, washing bats, boards</h3> <p> <img class="floatLeft" alt="medieval woman laundering - paddle beating cloth on ground" title="14th century woman with laundry bat" src="images/medieval washing bat.jpg"/>Washing clothes in the river is still the normal way of doing laundry in many less-developed parts of the world. Even in prosperous parts of the world <a href="/french-washboards.aspx"> riverside washing</a> went on well into the 19th century, or longer in rural areas - even when the <a href="/washing-ice-hole.aspx">river was frozen</a>. Stains might be treated at home before being taken to the river. You could take special tools with you to the river to help the work: like a <a href="/washing-beetles-possing.aspx"> washing bat</a> or a board to scrub on. Washing bats and beetles were also useful for laundering elsewhere, and have been used for centuries, sometimes for smoothing dry cloth too. (See 14th century picture left and 16th century painting above.)</p> <p> Long thin washing bats are not very different from sticks. Both can be used for moving cloth around as well as for beating the dirt out of it. Doing this with a piece of wood was called possing, and various styles of <a href="/washing-dollies.aspx"> possers, washing dollies etc.</a> developed as an improvement on plain tree branches. Squarish washing bats could double up as a scrub board. Simple <a href="/laundry-venice.aspx"> wooden boards</a> can be taken to the riverside, or rocks at the edge of the water may be used as scrubbing surfaces. (The more sophisticated kind of <a href="/washboards-history.aspx"> wash board</a> with ridged metal in a wooden frame came later.) Two other techniques for shifting dirt are slapping clothes or trampling with bare feet. (See below left.)</p> <p> <img class="floatRight" alt="kneeling women scrubbing cloth on rock and board" title="Detail from Tintoretto's Jews in the Desert c1593 " src="/images/washerwomen renaissance.jpg"/> Domestic laundry was often treated like newly woven textiles being "finished". Today we have only vague ideas about how the fabrics in our shop-bought clothes are manufactured, but traditional laundry methods often followed techniques used by weavers, including home weavers. </p> <h3> Lye, bucking, soaking</h3> <p> Soaking <a href="/washing-with-lye.aspx">laundry in lye</a>, cold or hot, was an important way of tackling white and off-white cloth. It was called bucking, and aimed to whiten as well as cleanse. Coloured fabrics were less usual than today, especially for basic items like sheets and shirts. Ashes and urine were the most important substances for mixing a good "lye". As well as helping to remove stains and encourage a white colour, these act as good de-greasing agents. </p> <p><img class="floatLeft" alt="Woman standing in wooden washtub" title="Scottish women trod laundry bare legged into the 19th C" src="/images/treading laundry.jpg"/> <a href="/lye-bucking.aspx">Bucking</a> involved lengthy soaking and was not a weekly wash. Until the idea of a once-a-week wash developed, people tended to have a big laundry session at intervals of several weeks or even months. Many women had agricultural and food preparation duties that would make it impossible for them to "waste" time on hours of laundry work every week. If you were rich you had lots of household linen, shirts, underclothing etc. and stored up the dirty stuff for future washing. If you were poor your things just didn't get washed very often. Fine clothing, lace collars and so on were laundered separately.</p> <p> Soap, mainly soft soap made from ash lye and animal fat, was used by <a href="/17th-century-washing.aspx"> washerwomen whose employers paid</a> for it. Soap was rarely used by the poorest people in medieval times but by the 18th century soap was fairly widespread: sometimes kept for finer clothing and for tackling stains, not used for the whole wash. <a href="/laundry-starch-history.aspx">Starch</a> and <a href="/laundry-blue.aspx">bluing</a> were available for better quality linen and clothing. A visitor to England just before 1700 sounded a little surprised at how much soap was used in London: </p> <blockquote> <i>At London, and in all other Parts of the Country where they do not burn Wood, they do not make Lye. All their Linnen, coarse and fine, is wash'd with Soap. When you are in a Place where the Linnen can be rinc'd in any large Water, the Stink of the black Soap is almost all clear'd away.</i><br /> M. Misson's Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England (first published in French, 1698)</blockquote> <h3> Drying, bleaching</h3> <p> <img class="floatRight" alt="laying white laundry on grass in town of Delft" title="Detail from Woman and child in a bleaching ground, 1650s, Pieter de Hooch " src="images/17th century drying laundry.jpg"/> The <a href="/washing-days.aspx">Grand Wash or the Great Wash</a> were names for the irregular "spring cleaning" of laundry. Soaking in lye and bucking in large wooden bucking tubs were similar to processes used in textile manufacturing. So was the next stage - drying and bleaching clothes and fabrics out of doors. Sunshine helped bleach off-white cloth while drying it. Sometimes cloth was sprinkled at intervals with water and/or a dash of lye to lengthen the process and enhance bleaching. </p> <p> Towns, mansions, and textile weavers had an area of mown grass set aside as a <a href="/drying-outdoors.aspx">bleaching ground</a>, or drying green, where household linens and clothing could be spread on grass in the daylight. Early settlers in America established communal bleaching areas like those in European towns and villages. Both washing and drying were often public and/or group activities. In warmer parts of Europe some cities provided <a href="/french-washboards.aspx#wash-houses">communal laundry spaces</a> with a water supply. </p> <p> <img class="floatLeft" alt="woman spreads washing over tree and hedge" title="George Morland etching, 1792" src="images/18th century drying clothes on branches.jpg"/> People also <a href="/clothes-horses-airers.aspx">dried clothes</a> by spreading them on bushes. Large houses sometimes had wooden frames or ropes for drying indoors in poor weather. Outdoor drying frames and <a href="http://aneafiles.webs.com/saccoccia.html"> clotheslines are seen in paintings</a> from the 16th century, but most people would have been used to seeing laundry spread to dry on grass, hedgerows etc. Clothes pegs/pins seem to have been rare before the 18th century. Pictures show sheets etc. hung over clotheslines with no pegs. </p> <blockquote> Richmond, Virginia in the 1770s:<br /> <i>Customers took their laundry to washerwomen's homes and returned there to collect clean clothes.... ...Much washing took place in public. ... washerwomen "boyle[d]...the cloaths with soap" ... Laundresses then gathered near the market house where Shockoe Creek approached the James River. They "washed in the stream" and then allowed clothes to dry on a nearby pasture...</i><br /> James Sidbury, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521598605?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0521598605"> Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0521598605" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> <br /> Quotes and info from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0910412561?ie=UTF8&tag=oldint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0910412561"> Journal of John Harrower: An Indentured Servant in the Colony of Virginia 1773 1776</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldint-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0910412561" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" /> </blockquote> <p> <img class="floatRight" alt="women washing and laundry on field beside town" title="Bleaching ground by de Momper and Jan Brueghel II, early 17th C " src="images/17th century washing drying laundry.jpg"/> If you want to know about one particular time and place, you may need to do more detailed research, but we hope you will find plenty of information on this site to get you started.</p> <p> See also:<br /> <a href="/history-of-washing-clothes.aspx">Laundry in the 19th century</a> - changes during the 1800s<br /> <a href="/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx">History of Ironing</a><br /> <a href="/sitemap.htm">Site map with full list of laundry articles</a></p> <p> <img src="images/2ndleaf.gif" style="border-right: medium none; 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Laundry history, washing clothes in middle ages, renaissance, tudor, restoration, colonial, georgian times