Beginning with the tub
Long before any machine, washing meant a tub, water and effort. Clothes were soaked in a wooden tub or a stone basin and then scrubbed, pounded or rubbed. Washboards and tubs formed the standard household kit for generations, with a boiler or copper for heating water and a wringer or mangle for squeezing out the excess. The labor involved is described in the article on the development of the washing machine; this article is more concerned with how the work was mechanized and organized as a business.
Early tub and box machines
Inventors began patenting washing devices in the 1700s. A British patent from 1691 is often cited as an early one, though the details are thin. Several types of hand-operated machine appeared over the next century and a half:
- Rocking or dolly machines, where a wooden agitator or set of pegs moved clothes back and forth in a tub.
- Plunger or pounder types, which forced water through cloth by repeated pressing.
- Box machines with a rotating or oscillating mechanism, turned by a handle.
- Early drums, covered in the separate article on the washing machine drum.
Most of these were wooden, simple to build and sold to households or small businesses. Their quality varied, and in practice they did not always clean much better than hand work. Their advantage was that they reduced strain, which counted for a lot when laundry day was a physical ordeal.
Commercial and public laundries
As cities grew, so did the demand for washing as a service. Washerwomen worked from their homes, and some towns provided public wash houses where people could use basins and hot water. In the nineteenth century, businesses known as steam laundries appeared, using steam for heating water and sometimes for driving machinery. These served hotels, hospitals, institutions and households that could pay.
Large laundries needed equipment that handled bulk loads and fit into a production routine:
- big washing cylinders that rotated clothes through hot soapy water
- hydroextractors, which spin water out of wet cloth by centrifugal force and are generally dated to the nineteenth century
- mangles and calenders for pressing flat items such as sheets and tablecloths
- drying rooms or tumbling dryers using heated air
These businesses were often staffed mostly by women, and the work could be hot, wet and demanding even with machines. Hours and wages varied, and reformers of the period raised concerns about conditions in some laundries.
Machines for the home
Home machines arrived in more reliable form in the nineteenth century and then electric versions in the early twentieth, a transition covered in the article on the invention of the washing machine. One result was that many household tasks that had previously been sent to commercial laundries could be done at home, though commercial services remained important for many customers, especially in cities where homes lacked space or plumbing.
Self-service laundries
Another idea was to rent machines by the load. Coin-operated or self-service laundries, sometimes called launderettes or laundromats, spread in the twentieth century. An early self-service laundry in Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1930s is often mentioned as a pioneering example, and similar businesses became common in many countries after World War II. They suited people in apartments or rented rooms who did not own a machine and gave laundry a new form between home work and commercial service.
Industrial machinery today
Modern industrial laundries serve hotels, hospitals, restaurants, uniform suppliers and many other businesses. Their equipment is larger and more automated than anything a household uses. Typical features include:
- large front-loading washer-extractors that wash and spin in a single drum
- continuous tunnel systems where loads move from one compartment to the next
- automatic dosing of detergents and control of temperature and water use
- heavy-duty dryers and finishing lines for sheets, towels and uniforms
Many of these designs focus on efficiency, since water, energy and labor are major costs. Hospitals and food businesses also have rules about cleaning and disinfecting textiles that shape the cycles used. The details of those standards vary by country and are outside the scope of this history.
What links the home and the factory machine
Looking across the whole story, a home washer and an industrial one do the same basic job: they move clothes through water and detergent, remove dirt by mechanical action, and then extract water. The difference is mostly scale, control and the way the work is organized. In both cases, the washing machine shifted effort from muscle to machinery, but it did not make the demand for clean clothes disappear. In many places, the total amount of laundry grew as habits changed, and it continues to be a major part of household and commercial energy and water use.