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Photographer: Syd Whittle
Taken: March 14, 2010
Caption: Laundry Tubs
Additional Description: Doing laundry before modern washing machines was a difficult, time consuming task. Collected here are some of the tools once used to do this arduous job.

Dirty clothes were put into washtubs filled with soapy water and scrubbed on a wooden washboard which had a corrugated zinc surface. A dolly stick, a wooden handle with four or five prongs at its base, was pounded up and down and rotated, aerating the wash and loosening the dirt. After washing, the clothes were placed into the cast iron caldron and boiled. The last of the soap was rinsed out and the clothes were then squeezed through the wringer’s rubber rollers. Finally, the clothes were hung on the line to dry.
Submitted: March 20, 2010, by Syd Whittle of Mesa, Arizona.
Database Locator Identification Number: p101163
File Size: 2.722 Megabytes

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