Beating it on a Rock

This morning I was in my laundry room and it got me thinking, how easy laundry is to do. I have a laundry room equipped with an automatic washer and dryer. There's but a few modern American homes that lack such equipment. I also have an ironing board with my iron ready to go.
There was a time not so far in the distant past when Laundry was a chore. Our earliest ancestors merely beat their clothes out on a rock. Then came along soaps and the wash board. From what I understand the Wash board was a modern marvel of its time. Imagine you could take your laundry somewhere else other than the local river. Many women were out in the back yard a few times a week hunched over a wash tub and a good wash board. There she washed her families laundry.
Now at some point some one came up with the idea of the ringer to removed the water from clothes. This must have been a marvelous invention as well. I mean could you imagine hand ringing heavy cotton linen. Its not like the family was wearing T-shirts and polyester pants.
With the common use of electricity came the electric ringer washer. These early models were no more than an electric agitator, the laundry still had to be manually put into the ringer. I can assure this was no easy task. Just as an example have you ever tried to smash a large ball of play dough through one of those dough machines. Imagine doing that with your favorite dress or your husbands dungarees.
But alas a wonderful man came along and solved the problems of the ringer, he made it electric. For some reason I think this idea seemed better than it was. Two rolling barrels there to put your clothes through and possibly your fingers. Nice try but I like my pointer finger.
So then came along the SPIN cycle. Oh! what a wonderful day that was in the homes of Domestic Engineers everywhere? For once you could put on a load of laundry and come back to it when it was done. No longer did we have to stand by the washer waiting for the water to drain and then squeezing the water from our laundry.
As you have noticed I made no mention of the electric clothes dryer. That's because that was another task women were destine to do on laundry day. The clothes be it 2000 BC or 1920 had to be hung up to dry. I am sure when the marvels of Natural gas were making its way into Victorian age homes there must have been a gas clothes dryer. However, I doubt they were no more than luxury at that point. As you can imagine Rain, Sleet, and Snow were a damper on laundry day. I know this for myself as I have lived without a dryer before. I have had tons of laundry drying all around my home because it was raining or worse, they would get frozen. The electric clothes dryer became popular and with good reason. No longer did you have to wait the entire day for laundry to dry. There weren't as many wrinkles so ironing could be skipped and the weather wasn't going to stop a domestic engineer from doing more housework.
I mentioned Ironing before. We live in a remarkable time in the history of laundry. In less than 2 hours it can be folded and put away without blinking and eye. There was a time when Ironing HAD to be done. Nearly everything was made from 100% cotton. In this day and age I run from cotton linen like the plague. It wrinkles if its breath on the wrong way. Yet the domestic Engineers of our past had no choice. They had to iron to everything, table cloth, the shirts, the jackets, the petticoats. And ironing wasn't as easy as heating up the Black and Decker iron you got for your wedding present either. First the iron was made of solid cast iron and had to be heated by a fire. The ironess had to wear a mitten over her hand so she wouldn't get burned. There was no spray corn starch in those days, so you guessed it, the laundry had to be soaked in the starch before ironing. Another step in the laundry process long forgotten. With her heavy iron the domestic engineer set out to press every stitch of the clothing in the home.
Now some remarkable things happened in the 20th century that has saved the Domestic Engineer from ironing every stitch of the clothing. Those things are the electric clothes dryer and polyester. Polyester freed women in that it doesn't wrinkle. I have heard whispers from Domestic Engineers of this era that looked at polyester clothing for her family as a way to get out of ones duties. I look at as something I don't have to iron. Ironing also became easier with the advent of the electric iron and spray starch. I love spray starch for making collars look nice, but I could never imagine having to soak the collar in the just the right amount of starch to keep it from getting too shiny or so hard it could stand up and walk by itself. Starching clothes in of its self must have been a true art form. In this day and age an ironed shirt is a luxury. A true luxury if one is able to starch it to perfection.
Though women no longer find themselves beating clothes on a rock, or ironing their clothes with 20lbs cast iron clothing iron we still cannot seem to do the laundry and we most certainly don't enjoy it. Well that's some of us, knowing our history and how far we have come with doing laundry I can happily say I LOVE laundry. I wash clothes several times a week and its as easy as taking the clothes basket to the laundry room, turning on the washer and adding detergent. I then move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. As soon as the dry is finished or after I fluffed it for the 10th time I will fold the clothes. I use the top of my dry er to fold clothes. I have found putting my freshly dried clothes in a laundry basket only lets them pile up in unfolded masses..usually destine to be rewashed again. IF a shirt needs to be ironed I plug in my iron and give the shirt a quick pressing. With all of my convinces I still have a load of towels that have been in dryer for nearly two days and a set of bath mats in the washers that's been finished since 10AM this morning. :)