{"id":304,"date":"2018-06-23T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T19:03:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-02-13T04:32:51","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T04:32:51","slug":"laundry-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/laundry-woes.html","title":{"rendered":"Laundry Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\nCleaning My Closet<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWe are finally renovating our master en suite, the workers
\nare due this week.  <\/span>The one problem is
\nthat we are also replacing the carpeting in our walk-in closet with tile
\nflooring to match the bathroom tiles. 
\n<\/span>What this means is that everything in the closet needs to be removed,
\nwith the exception of the highest shelves, which should be ok covered with dust
\ncloths.  <\/span>Some garments we will place in
\nthe guestroom closet (where we will be the guests for 3 weeks),  <\/span>Others we will hang, covered, on  <\/span>portable garment racks in the garage.  <\/span>I am confident that it will be necessary to
\nplace the overfill on the bed, covered with sheets.  <\/span>No matter how protected there will be dust and a certain amount
\nof garment cleaning will be required.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThis situation has led me to consider how laundering was
\ndone in the past.  <\/span>When my mother was a
\nyoung housewife laundry was  <\/span>much more
\nof a chore ( of course I never did understand her need to iron absolutely
\neverything, with the exception of bath towels).<\/div>\n
\nI turned to America\u2019s Housekeeping Book as a reference.  <\/span>This small volume is packed with information
\nany homemaker post-WWII would need to consider in keeping the perfect
\nhome.  <\/span>There is an entire section
\ndedicated to LAUNDERING which includes laundry equipment, soaps, water
\nsofteners, ironing procedures and treatment of spots and stains.  <\/span>There are recipes for making bluing, starch
\nand bleaching liquids.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n                                                    Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1947<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nOne of my favorite references, Fashion Victims, tells of the
\ndangers of women wearing street-length clothing which attracted not only dust
\nfrom the streets but also a myriad of nasties, including organisms responsible
\nfor many diseases.  <\/span>All this detritus
\nwas brought into the home and cleaning was done by brushing  <\/span>and spot cleaning with damp clothes.<\/div>\n
\n        <\/o:p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n                          <\/div>\n
\n                               Allison Matthews David,     Bloomsbruy, London, 2015 <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThen I retreated further into history reading Women of the
\nRenaissance. Washing clothes ( and, apparently bodies) was undertaken once a
\nmonth or so.  <\/span>Those without house-hold
\nhelp drew water from the city wells for washing.  <\/span>Soap was made from lye and animal fats. Outer clothing was rarely washed but linen undergarments were “aired” after each wear.  Those that were washed were dried on patches of grass.  Linens dried on grass for up to 4 weeks resulted in permanent bleaching.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n                                                    University of Chicago Press, 1991<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBefore there was access to city wells, laundry was taken down to the river for washing.  In rural areas the waters were probably fairly clean, especially those upstream from farms, but those near higher populations  were heavily contaminated as raw sewage was thrown out into the streets and washed away by rain ( into the the streams).<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAfter all this research I have come to the conclusion that I am very fortunate to have a large white metal appliance into which I can put my laundry , add a soap pod, and push a button.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleaning My Closet We are finally renovating our master en suite, the workers are due this week.  The one problem is that we are also replacing the carpeting in our walk-in closet with tile flooring to match the bathroom tiles.  What this means is that everything in the closet needs to be removed, with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}