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For “It’s About Time” column. Written by Susan Parsons “This Was the Way We Washed our Clothes” 1910 advertisement, courtesy Wikipedia, today considered disparaging Some historians called doing the laundry the American housekeeper’s biggest problem. Attaining clean laundry required staggering amounts of time and hard work. The posser (also known as a dolly, dolly legs, peggy, posher or plunger) was used to agitate laundry in a tub. The device could pound on the textiles or stir them. The posser is injurious to some fabrics, especially linen. The earliest known reference to the posser is from the early 1600’s. ---PAGE BREAK--- Posser, one of several in the Sterling Historical Society’s collections. The logo states” Rapid Washer Made by C. T. Childers, Galesburg, ILL.” ---PAGE BREAK--- Underside of the above posser The scrub board or washboard was invented in 1797, which some said greatly improved women’s lives. Instead of having to rub soiled textiles by hand or with the posser alone, the launderer could scrub them back and forth over a corrugated board, dipping them in and out of hot, soapy water, making them cleaner. However, the water still had to be carried, heated, put into basins and carried away when the laundry was clean. The clothing and linens still had to be scrubbed, pulled out of the water, rinsed, rung out and dried on a clothes line. The least-soiled fabrics were washed first, followed by dirtier and dirtier clothes, to save time and energy carrying and heating water. ---PAGE BREAK--- Washboards, part of the Sterling Historical Society Collections An advancement was the hand-cranked drum, patented in 1851, which aided in the agitation process. A set of paddles or fingers, moved by a lever or a wheel, sloshed the laundry around in a tub. A few washers were powered by low speed one cylinder gasoline engines, bringing forth other sets of problems, such as scarcity of fuel, unreliability of the popping and coughing engine, exhaust fumes, tubs leaking onto the engines, etc. By 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, wringers began to be added to the drums, resulting in the first “modern” washing machine that agitated the soapy water and wrung the water out. In almost all cases these processes were powered by the launderer working the agitator and cranking the wringer. The first electric wringer became available around 1910, but most homes did not have electricity to power one. The ringer was also known as the mangler. It worked like a pasta machine in that the clothes were fed through two closely spaced rollers which squeezed out the water. Eventually the most dangerous “manglers” were outlawed because hands, arms and hair could get caught in them, resulting in ghastly injuries. This applied especially to electrically powered wringers. Many curious children were injured by the ringer. In the early twentieth century, wooden tubs began to be replaced by metal ones. ---PAGE BREAK--- George Sheldon, life member of the Sterling Historical Society, generously donated this Mary Jane Washing Machine to the Historical Society. It has a wooden tub that is corrugated in the interior, roughly corresponding to a wash board. The washer was made by the Specialty MFG Co, Kankakee, Ill. The attached wringer was made by the Lovell Co. ---PAGE BREAK--- ---PAGE BREAK--- ---PAGE BREAK--- This wooden tub washing machine had a cover that was locked into place. The wooden lever was moved up and down to move the wooden fingers back and forth, thus agitating the laundry. The hand ---PAGE BREAK--- crank used to power the wringer can easily be observed. The machine has a drain hole at the bottom outside of the tub. This washing machine can be seen at the Sterling Historical Society’s Schoolhouse Museum in the general store section.