Updated 05-May-2020.
Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about LAUNDRY!
My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: laundry refers to the washing of clothing and other textiles in a room reserved for that purpose . in an individual home this is referred to as a laundry room, Laundry in Australian English or utility room the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this universal human need are of interest to several branches of scholarship . laundry work has traditionally been highly gendered, with the responsibility in most cultures falling to women (known as laun the dirt was beaten out with a wooden implement known as a washing paddle, battling stick, bat, beetle or club . wooden or stone scrubbing surfaces set up near a water supply were villages across Europe that could afford it built a wash-house, sometimes known by the French name of lavoir . water channelled from a stream or spring and fed into a building, possibly just a roof with no walls many village wash-houses are still standing, historic structures with no obvious modern purpose . many of these village washhouses were still standing . some lavoirs had wash-basins at waist height, while others remained wash-houses were an obligatory stop in many women’s weekly lives . tradition is reflected in the catalan idiom “fer safareig” (literally, “to do the the city authorities wanted to give the poorer population the opportunity to wash their clothes . sometimes large metal cauldrons were filled with fresh water and heated over a fire . the aim was to foster hygiene and thus reduce outbreaks the mangle (or “wringer” in American English) was developed in the 19th century . a laundry-worker took sopping wet clothing and cranked it through a mangle . the man 19th-century inventors further mechanized the laundry process with hand-operated washing machines . most involved turning a handle to move paddles inside a tub . some early-20th century machines used an electrically powered around 1900, one in four ethnic Chinese men in the u.s. worked in a laundry . new york city had an estimated 3,550 Chinese laundries at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930s. bob greene: in 1933, the city’s board of aldermen passed a law clearly intended to drive the Chinese out of the business . he says the “chinese laundry” is an impromt Clothes were treated in small tubs standing in niches surrounded by low walls . the tub was filled with water and mixture of alkaline chemicals (sometimes including urine) fuller stood in the tub and trampled the washing will often be done at a temperature above room temperature to increase the activities of any chemicals used and the solubility of stains . high temperatures kill micro-organisms that may be present on the fabric . modern washing machines typically use synthetic powdered or liquid laundry detergent in place of more traditional soap . solvent used is typically tetrachloroethylene, which the industry calls “perc” it is used to clean delicate fabrics in other parts of the world, including Europe, apartment buildings with laundry rooms are uncommon . those without a machine at home or the use of a laundry room must either wash their clothes by hand or visit a commercial self-service florida is the only state to expressly guarantee a right to dry . no other state has such clearcut legislation . Vermont considered a “Right to Dry” bill in 1999 . clothesline legislation debated in the states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Oregon, Virginia, and Vermont . for wool garments, this is due to scales on the fibers, which heat and some clothes are “pre-shrunk” to avoid color bleeding . color bleeding is lessened by cold water and repeated washings . washing a shirt with white underwear can result in pink underwear . laundry symbols are included on many clothes to help consumers avoid these problems . Synthetic fibers in laundry can contribute to microplastic pollution . a washerwoman is the disguise adopted by Toad in Wind in the Willows .