Photography courtesy of the Missouri History Museum, Bartlett Family Glass Plate Negative Collection
A 1900 laundry manual lists 48 things you need before you can wash a single sock: an agate pan, a copper kettle, a wringer, a clothes horse, a bosom board, French chalk, kerosene, beeswax, small pointy irons…then comes “soaking, washing, rinsing, boiling, rinsing, bluing, starching, hanging, drying, sprinkling, stretching, folding”—after scrubbing stains with kerosene. “Hanging should be in the open air,” the prissy instructions for clothesline etiquette dictate. “The line should be perfectly clean and the pins clean. The line should not be left out to get soiled, and the pins should be scrubbed well when soiled. Always shake the garments well, hang straight, and with the wind.” Wouldn’t you stick your tongue out at the camera, too?
