"Wash Day"

In addition to cooking and eating, the kitchen was also the location for other chores like washing and ironing clothes. Sally Haner, a Three Rivers farm woman, complained in her diaries about the dreaded weekly wash day: "Monday morning, wash day a most monstrous large wash." One can imagine why she dreaded laundry day with pounds of washing to do by hand, and a washboard her most modern washing appliance.

Then washing was always followed by ironing yards and yards of material to be ironed with a heavy sad iron, so called because of its weight--though one might wonder if tears were ever shed over this chore. Irons were heated by placing them on a hot stove, or in later models by placing hot coals in a hollow iron. They came in all shapes and sizes for different purposes. Shown here are two examples, the sad iron for general purpose use, and the fluting iron which created pleats--a most dreadful job in the summer heat.

Sewing and mending clothes and other household textiles was a frequent activity of women and girls. Nothing was wasted, least of all clothing, which was mended, restyled, expanded and contracted as needed by the wearer. Once a garment was worn beyond respectability, the fabric might have been reused in a quilt, for cleaning rags, or sold to paper factories. Women exchanged tasks as their skills allowed: some were weavers, some spinners. Others were more adept at sewing and other forms of needlecraft.