The exhibit explores the laborious laundry techniques of the early 1900s used by Julia Wolfe and her staff in her boarding house. Doing laundry by hand could take up to 3 days to complete and was usually done once a week. By the early 1900s, commercial laundry products like soap and starch were available. Julia and her staff would wash linens like sheets and tablecloths in the kitchen. Alternatively, households could send fabrics to commercial laundries as businesses to save time. No matter the method, laundry was a much more intensive chore than with modern washing machines.

1. The exhibit “All in a Day’s Work: Laundry in the Early 1900s” explores
laundry techniques of the early 20th century are examined used by Julia Wolfe and
her staff. Thomas Wolfe mentions these methods in Look Homeward, Angel.
During the early 1900s, laundry was a monumental chore; before the mass
production of electric washing machines in the mid-1920s, women of the household
completed laundry by hand, which could take up to 3 days to complete. Laundry was
usually done once a week, often on Mondays. It took 12 hours or more to complete
what an electric washing machine today can do in 40 minutes.
By the time Julia bought the Old Kentucky Home in 1906, commercial
laundry products like laundry soap, chlorine, bluing, and starch were widely
available. Hard bars of soap were used for laundry. Many brands, like Ivory Soap,
floated to make the bars easier to find in large washtubs. By the 1930s, soap flakes
were popular; they were formulated specifically for laundry, and dissolved more
quickly.
Julia and her part-time staff often washed the linens of her boarding house,
such as sheets and tablecloths. There are many references in Thomas Wolfe’s Look
Homeward, Angel to Eliza Gant, the mother in the novel, working on the laundry in
her boarding house often late into the night. Before Eugene “went to bed, he
descended to the kitchen for matches. [Eliza] was still there, beyond the long littered
table, at her ironing board, flanked by two big piles of laundry.” Julia often
completed laundry in the kitchen, especially in the winter.
Alternatively, households sometimes sent their fabrics to a commercial
laundry, which were businesses that picked up, washed, and delivered laundry. To
keep up with the demands of running her boarding house, Julia sometimes used a
commercial laundry to save time for other household chores. In Look Homeward,
Angel, Wolfe describes passing the Appalachian Laundry, a commercial laundry, on
his paper route. He writes, “There was a hot blast of steamy air from the
Appalachian Laundry across the street and, as the door from the office of the
washroom opened, they had a moment’s glimpse of negresses plunging their wet
arms into the liquefaction of their clothes.” No matter how the laundry was done, it
was much more of a chore than it is today with the help of high-powered electric
washing machines.