Laundry

Laundry. Built 1915. , Located near the Mansion, yet far enough away that work went out on out of earshot, the Laundry housed two rooms. The larger one, the "house laundry," contained equipment for washing, drying, ironing and pressing curtains, bedding, table linens, and articles of clothing worn by the duPonts. In the smaller "servant's portion," domestic workers attended to their own clothes using washtubs and irons. In both rooms, windows provided light and ventilation; cork floors reduced slippage. Steam boilers in the basement heated the laundry. An underground tunnel linked the Mansion and Laundry so that workers could move items without going outside., The position of "head laundress" was among the highest-paid on the estate. The duPonts only hired English or Scotch laundresses and stated that "only those with best references need apply.", [Captions:] , This circa 1910 illustration shows the equipment which would exist in a "typical" residential laundry for an estate such a as Nemours. Much of the original equipment in the Nemours Laundry is still in place. Illustration from Chicago Dryer Company catalog, Sweet's Catalogue of Building Construction (New York, 1911)., Advertisement for the "Laun-Dry-Ette," a dual function machine, one of several different models which Alfred I. duPont considered purchasing for the Laundry in 1920., Nemours Estate's Laundry closely followed this "model floor plan," except that the washers were located along the wall adjacent to the clothes dryers. Illustration from Dryer Manufacturing Company catalog, Sweet's Catalogue of Building Construction (New York, 1911).