Wash Day Blues: How to Wash Clothes by Hand

Enlarge Image Image Gallery The Monday wash day ritual required an array of equipment: cast iron pot, wooden benches, galvanized washtubs, hand-cranked wringer, rub board, poke stick, bottle of bluing, box of starch, lye soap and clothes pins.

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As sure as death and taxes, every Monday was wash day.

Like the Ten Commandments, the event was carved in stone and postponed only by funerals or bad weather. Though family wash day routines varied, Mondays on the Trew farm were always devoted to this never-ending chore.

The ritual began when a black cast iron pot was set upright on bricks, warmed by a fire underneath. We aligned wooden benches to hold four galvanized washtubs, and attached a hand-cranked wringer to the first tub along with a regular rub board. We then filled the pot and three tubs with fresh water.

Next, we fetched from the back porch a laundry basket containing a poke stick, a bottle of Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing, a box of Faultless starch, a starch pan, a bag of clothes pins and several cakes of lye soap. While the water heated, we added bluing to the fourth tub and wiped the clothes line wire with a damp cloth.

With the water hot, we dipped a portion into the first tub and more into the starch pan. Then we spread lye soap slivers into the hot water with a pocketknife, making a mild lye-and-water mixture in the tub and a strong mixture in the pot.

Next, we sorted the dirty laundry; soft colors were thrown into the pot and whites into the tub. Work clothes and rags were left until last to boil in the pot. Light whites were scrubbed on the rub board before they were wrung and rinsed. Clothes in the pot were stirred and poked until clean. Eventually, everything was stirred, poked, wrung and rinsed before they were hung on the line. Some items were rinsed in the bluing tub, and others were dipped in the starch pan.

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