DOWN AND DIRTY: THE LIFE OF A LAUNDRESS by Jennifer Jakes

Welcome back to History Undressed, guest author Jennifer Jakes! If you didn't visit her previous posts, you should: Miss Kitty Lied (Prostitutes) & They Did What??? (Historical Vibrators). Today she is enthralling us yet again with the life of a laundress. Fascinating!

DOWN AND DIRTY: THE LIFE OF A LAUNDRESS

by Jennifer Jakes

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Naughty, naughty. *insert Tsk here* And while I will touch upon some of the “horizontal” work a Laundress could do to earn a little extra money, the main part of this post deals with the long hours of the world’s other oldest profession: Scrubbing clothes.

As a Civil War Re-enactor, I chose the Army Laundress as my portrayal. When I found this historical photo of a woman, her husband and three children, I focused on recreating her look and the look of her camp for mine. (My husband is a Corp. in a small artillery unit and two our daughters re-enact with us.) So I wanted to share some of the information I discovered while researching this Army occupation. Yep, you read that right. The Army Laundress was employed by the Union Army. (The Confederate Army quite possibly did the same, but my research was for the Union.) All info from: Civil War Times, Aug. 1999 - including historic photo - and Laundry Handbook by Virginia Mescher

*Appointed by the captain of the company, the first thing he assigned the laundress was her letter of good character. She was the only woman granted official status in the army camp. All others – including officers’ wives – were considered Camp Followers.

*She was usually married to or related to one of the lower ranking soldiers. Her tent was set apart from the men – and if she was married to a soldier, he normally stayed with her on Suds Row.

*While most laundresses seemed respectable enough, there were a few who made “lots of money nature’s way. One of them had a bill today against a soldier for forty dollars.” –  Quote from a private, 2^nd Minnesota Infantry. (Wow! That’s a lot of scrubbing up and down on. . .  something! Bet it wasn’t his socks. *wink* ) Such improper behavior was grounds for dismissal UNLESS the company captain chose to look the other way.

*One such “energetic” washer woman could make upwards of $40 per month. A true laundress who actually washed clothing, made about $7- $12. per month. Combined with her husband’s pay of about $13 per month, the couple could earn a good amount for that day.

*The washer woman received a tent, daily rations of food and services of the surgeon. (These must have been the perks of the job. Unless you were the woman who made……..nevermind.)

Laundry was not a one day event for women of this time. It could take up to three days to complete all the steps. Here they are in order:

Mending – Yes, dirty clothes

Sorting

Stain Removal

Soaking – Which would mean this and all of the above steps would be done on (example) Monday and left overnight to soak.

Washing(read Scrubbing) and/or Boiling – 1 wash, 1 boil, 1 rinse meant at least 50 gallons of water. (Hope they camped near a creek.)

Rinsing – 3 rinses were customary (think of wringing each piece – esp. those wool uniforms – by hand! Yes, some laundresses did have wringer (a clothes squeezer), but most outside of hospital workers did not.)

Bluing – This was used for whites. Bluing does not bleach the clothes, but once added to the final rinse, gave the illusion of “white”.

Bleaching –If the Bluing did not make the white items as white as desired, they could either be laid in the sun to sun-bleach or a chemical bleach could be used. A common chemical used was Ammonia. The most common source of ammonia was STALE URINE! (Bet those clothes smelled nice and freshly laundered. Not!)

Starching – Starch helped keep dirt from being ground into the material. Remember, these men or women did not change clothes daily. Sometimes, not even weekly.

Drying – Hopefully the laundress had a place to string a clothes line. Otherwise, clothes would be spread on the ground or on top of shrubs. (This ended Day 2 of washing.)

Sprinkling – After the clothes were dry, the starched items were sprinkled with water, rolled up and allowed to absorb the water so they were damp. This softened the starch and made clothes easier to iron.

Ironing – Flat or Sad irons (sad meant heavy) and it took 1 ½ hrs to heat a 6 pound iron. Laundresses kept several “irons in the fire” as she couldn’t wait 1 ½ each time an iron cooled. (I suspect this is where the saying too many irons in the fire came from.) They didn’t really put the iron in the fire though as that would have meant streaking soot over clean clothes so they used upside down frying pans set on the fire grate. I suppose the women might have brought their own Trivit from home. Anyway, ironing costs a soldier about 3 cents per shirt.

Airing – This was an important step as the clothes were still damp after ironing and they were folded damp, they would crease and if the weather was warm, mildew.

Folding – Even women doing laundry at home folded as most “poor to middle class” didn’t have closets.

 OK, I could go on and on with interesting facts but for now……….Go kiss your washing machine and dryer!

After trying several careers—everything from a beautician to a dump truck driver—Jennifer finally returned to her first love, writing. Maybe it was all those Clint Eastwood movies she watched growing up, but in her opinion there is no better read than a steamy western historical.

Married to her very own hero, she lives on fifteen acres along with two beautiful daughters, three spoiled cats, three hyper dogs and one fat rabbit.

During the summer she does Civil War re-enacting and has found it a great research tool, not to mention she has continued appreciation for her microwave and hot water heater.

Her debut novel, RAFE’S REDEMPTION, was a RWA Golden Heart Finalist and Won BEST ROMANCE 2011 at DITHR.

Visit Jennifer Jakes at www.jenniferjakes.com

Jennifer's book, RAFE'S REDEMPTION is up for June iBook Buzz (read and discuss book of the month)!  Leave a comment to win an ecopy and you can participate in the discussion!

RAFE'S REDEMPTION

He rode into town to buy supplies, not a woman.

For hunted recluse Rafe McBride, the raven-haired beauty on the auction block  is exactly what he doesn't need. A dependent woman will be another clue his vengeful stepbrother can use to find and kill him. But Rafe's conscience won't let him leave another innocent's virginity to the riff-raff bidding. He buys her, promising to return her to St. Louis untouched. He only prays the impending blizzard holds off before her sultry beauty breaks his willpower.

She wanted freedom, not a lover.

Whisked to the auction block by her devious, gambling cousin, and then sold into the arms of a gorgeous stranger, outspoken artist Maggie Monroe isn't about to go meekly. Especially when the rugged mountain man looks like sin and danger rolled into one. But a blizzard and temptation thrust them together, and Maggie yearns to explore her smoldering passion for Rafe.

But when the snow clears, will the danger and secrets that surround Rafe and Maggie tear them apart?

 

TWICE IN A LIFETIME

Be Careful What You Wish For. . .

No-nonsense stuntwoman Isabella Douglas will do anything to stop an unwanted divorce and reclaim the happy life she had, even allow her old friend to concoct a magical spell to turn back time. But when the spell goes awry, Izzy finds herself trapped aboard a 1768 Caribbean pirate ship with a captain who’s a dead ringer for her sexy as sin husband, Ian. Convinced he’s playing a cruel joke, she’s furious – until she realizes he doesn’t know her or believe they’re married.

Captain Ian Douglas does not have time to deal with an insane woman who claims to be his wife; he has to save his kidnapped sister. But as Izzy haunts his dreams and fills him with erotic memories he can’t explain, he’s forced to admit he feels more than lust.

Trapped in a vicious cycle of past mirroring present, Izzy knows they only have days to find Ian’s sister and prevent disaster from striking a second time. If she doesn’t, their marriage will be destroyed again – along with the man she loves.

Cleaning in a Medieval Castle

This is by far the hardest blog I’ve had to write. Why? Because I simply haven’t been able to find as much information as I would have liked to. However, I will present to you what I’ve learned and hopefully it will enlighten you. If you have any additional information, please feel free to post it!

There has been much conflicting information about whether or not people in the middle ages were as clean as we were within out homes. I think its all hogwash. With what little tools they had to use comparatively and the way they lived, I believe they kept their homes to the best of their abilities.

Think about it, they didn’t have vacuums, steam cleaners, Swiffers, Lysol or Windex… We do, and there are definitely people out there that still don’t take advantage of all the advanced housecleaning tools and products. They still live in pigsties!

Where did the phrase “you live in a pigsty” come from?

Well the word pigsty, originated in the 1590’s as of course the word for a pigpen. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that it was used to describe someone’s living conditions as a dirty, messy or nasty place.

So how did they go about cleaning a medieval castle? Well, everyone had his or her own job to make sure that the place was in order, as well as someone to report to.

Obviously the lord and lady would be the head honchos, but underneath them you could have a steward, housekeeper, in some instances you may even have a chatelaine or castellan. A chatelaine is a mistress of the castle and a castellan is the governor of a castle. A husband and wife could be castellan and chatelaine together. These two would take the place of a lord or lady, let’s say they were not in attendance at the home or in some are instances if there was no lord, the lady may employ a governor, and vice versa.

A steward, also referred to as a seneschal was much more likely. His job was to take care of the estate and supervise the staff, as well as take care of the events in the great hall. The housekeeper would be in charge of the kitchen staff, the chambermaids, and cleaning of the estate.

Underneath the big dogs you might have various other workers, all the way down to the actual people who would do the cleaning, housemaids, scullions, and laundresses were the people who really cleaned quite a bit…

A housemaid would have quite a to do list from the time she woke in the morning. She would need to sweep the floors, generally downstairs until those who were sleeping had risen, then she would head upstairs. But even sweeping was a big deal. For instance, a lot of medieval castles had the floors strewn with rushes or straw. It was her job to see that these were cleaned up and replaced, but how often? It depended on the castle and who ran it. Some were changed monthly, some seasonally and some once a year. Whatever the case you can only imagine what was found underneath…

During the 15th century, the great scholar Erasmus wrote in a letter to a friend the following:

“The doors are, in general, laid with white clay, and are covered with rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for twenty years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned. Whenever the weather changes a vapour is exhaled, which I consider very detrimental to health. I may add that England is not only everywhere surrounded by sea, but is, in many places, swampy and marshy, intersected by salt rivers, to say nothing of salt provisions, in which the common people take so much delight I am confident the island would be much more salubrious if the use of rushes were abandoned, and if the rooms were built in such a way as to be exposed to the sky on two or three sides, and all the windows so built as to be opened or closed at once, and so completely closed as not to admit the foul air through chinks; for as it is beneficial to health to admit the air, so it is equally beneficial at times to exclude it."

Rush or straw woven mats were introduced to some to help with cleaning, so that these could be taken outside and beaten while the floors were swept, however some still preferred the strewn look. Herbs would be sprinkled throughout the rushes and mats to keep stench away. Some of the herbs used were lavender, chamomile, rose petals, daisies, cowslips, marjoram, basil, mint, violets, sage, and fennel.

In Thomas Tusser’s book Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, he gives lots of advice to housekeepers during the middle ages, here is what he says about getting rid of fleas in the rushes:

"While wormwood hath seed, get a bundle or twain,
to save against March, to make flea to refrain:
Where chamber is sweept, and wormwood is strown,
no flea, for his life, dare abide to be known.
What savour is best, if physic be true,
for places infected, than wormwood and rue?
It is as a comfort, for heart and the brain,
and therefore to have it, it is not in vain."

Sometimes the housemaid would even scrub the floors and walls with water and lye soap. (Lye soap is made from using the ashes of trees and shrubs, mixed with lard.) However this was only if they were made of stone or wood. If the wood happened to be covered over with plaster, she’d want to steer clear of using a water based cleaning method. Same goes for dirt floors.

After cleaning up the floor as much as she could a housemaid would then move onto the fireplaces. She clean out the ashes and soot and replace it with new logs for the day. Once upstairs she would clean out the basins and replace them with fresh water, as well as empty the chamber pots.

She would also sweep the floors and make the bed. If the bed needed cleaning she would collect up the linens to be given to the laundress. If the tapestries were in need of cleaning, she would have to take them down and outside to beat the dust and grime out of them. The maid would also be in charge of wiping down tables, benches, candlesticks, etc... pretty much any piece of furniture in any of the rooms. The housemaid would also be in charge of polishing any gold or silver in the house.

If she happened to finish her chores early, she could help out the cooks or laundresses. If the mattress itself needed cleaning, which it often did, because of lice, fleas and other nasty bedbugs, the maids would have to un-stuff it, have the mattress cleaned and then re-stuff it.

***It should also be noted that Parliament during the 14th century seemed to understand the need for cleanliness and its link to disease. Here is a proclamation they made in 1388:

"Item, that so much dung and filth of the garbage and entrails be cast and put into ditches, rivers, and other waters... so that the air there is grown greatly corrupt and infected, and many maladies and other intolerable diseases do daily happen... it is accorded and assented, that the proclamation be made as well in the city of London, as in other cities, boroughs, and towns through the realm of England, where it shall be needful that all they who do cast and lay all such annoyances, dung, garbages, entrails, and other ordure, in ditches, rivers, waters, and other places aforesaid, shall cause them utterly to be removed, avoided, and carried away, every one upon pain to lose and forfeit to our Lord the King the sum of 20 pounds..."

The laundress had a taxing job on the hands. Her hands were seeped in water day after day and would become dry and cracked. Her job was to clean and dry all the linens and garments within the household. The laundress also had the privilege, whether she liked it or not, to know about everyone’s bodily functions… Gagging… However nasty seeing the bloodstained sheets and then having to scrub them may have been, these ladies could rake in on the bribes from courtiers who would pay to know the cycles of queens, or even to see the sheets after a marriage is consummated.

Being a laundress was back breaking work. These ladies had to haul the water needed to do their cleaning from the well, moat or the closest river to where they did laundry, sometimes outside and sometimes in a designated room. After being heated, the water was dumped into a vat or into a bucking basket. Not only did they have to supply the water, they made the soap as well, using the method described above for lye soap. Lye soap was strong stuff, and could cut through the toughest grease spots, and other stains.

After getting the steamy water filled with lye soap, the laundress dumps the linens in and stirs with a wooden paddle, then literally beats the laundry until it’s clean.

Her job may have been a little easier than those who didn’t have access to such tools and took their laundry to the nearest river, soaked it and the beat it with and against rocks… That could take forever…

The next and last cleaning job I will discuss today is the job of a scullion or scullery maid. She or he was the lowest ranking among the servants, and may even be responsible for cleaning the chamber pots of other servants. They reported to the kitchen maid or cook. A scullion’s job was to clean the kitchen. This included, the floors, fireplace, pots and pans, and other dishes and utensils, disposing of the refuse. They were required to rise first and light all the fires and begin heating the water. Occasionally if they were down in servants, a scullion might serve the people in the hall and polish silver, gold and other expensive plate.

So what would you rather do?