Wash Day

Once a week I do laundry. Mind you laundry is the one household chore I do not enjoy. I have been reading Forgotten Household Crafts by John Seymour. While doing laundry today I was very surprised by the chapter on washing. Here are some laundry facts you may or may not know.

1. Well into the nineteenth century, linen was bleached using urine, which contains ammonia.

2. Potato grating and rice were boiled down to make starch.

3. The sun was a great bleacher. The linen was laid out on the village "bleaching green" where it was whitened by the sun.

4. The rich, who owned many clothes, employed washer women to come and do their washing once every six weeks in a mammoth washing session that usually lasted four days!

5. The poor whom had only the clothes on their backs washed their clothes before retiring to bed and could only hope they would be dry in the morning.

Lol, I may never complain about doing laundry again!!! Blessings,

Jill

(photo from Forgotten Household Crafts Book)