I seriously wonder how families with small children coped with the laundry situation going back a little ways. Life must have been constant chores, and I don't know how they ever had clothes that weren't damp.
Ok, long stumble down memory lane here:
I remember the 1950s chores, even though I was quite young. For a while we did not have a washing machine, so my mother used a washboard in the washing sink in the laundry room. (We were posh enough to have a separate laundry room!). When she got the electric washing machine, it was a godsend. When we got the dryer it was even better! But, here's how it went, from long years of observation:
Early in the day, once you cooked breakfast and sent hubby/older children on their way and cleaned up the dishes, pots and pans, fed/changed/cleaned up those still at home, got the beds made and things tidied, you started the laundry. Monday was traditionally the day in our neighborhood, as the housewives were "rested" from having Sunday off. (Except for preparing and then cleaning up massive Sunday dinners.) While you're filling the sink with screaming hot water and grated soap flakes, you separate the dirties into piles. You put the least dirty stuff in to wash first, wring out, rinse, ring out, rinse, ring out. Then the next dirtiest stuff goes into the sink. Same procedure. You might need to let it sit a bit while you freshen up the hot water, or if it is dirty enough to need a soak. Follow with the really dirty stuff, which required (usually) fresh hot water (boiling) and a long soak. Diapers were usually done in a separate load, as you had to get the water realllly hot. For whites (usually hubbie's shirts, if a white-collar guy, sheets, pillowcases, and handkerchiefs) in the final rinse there was a table of "bluing" that got tossed into the water. It gave everything a very slight blue tinge, which actually translated into looking really white, eventually. While things were soaking you would lug everything else that was done outside and hang it on the line. If it was winter/raining, we had, thankfully, an attic so it all got hanged up up there so we didn't have to bundle up and go outside. (I see racks hanging from the ceiling in kitchens in a lot of the "for rent" adverts here in Glasgow for tenements, so I am assuming that was their "attic.") If it was going to be raining, you had to just do "emergency" laundry and put the rest off until a better day if you didn't have someplace to dry it.
Next day was ironing day. We had a big old electric iron, with a spritz bottle to moisten the fabric if it was too dry. Standing there all freaking day long, ironing. When I was old enough, I "got to help" with the ironing. I still hate ironing. So, that's pretty much two full days doing laundry. Every week. To this day I make it a point to ~never~ iron handkerchiefs (in common use before Kleenex became standard), or sheets. Pillowcases I'll do, but only if they are 100% cotton - it makes them feel nicer. The Daughter thinks I'm nuts, but does seem to go for the ironed ones in the linen closet when she changes her bedding.
With small children there were meals to fix for the ones not in school. We kids were dragooned to help with the laundry once we were old enough to do anything at all, but prior to that my mom would have had us locked in "the playroom" or in a thing (I can't remember the name) that was put out on the lawn outside the window, in the shade, where she could see us kiddos, but where we couldn't wander off. Was like a little toddler prison - bars on the sides... a playpen? Of course, my mom (like a lot of moms into the 1950s) made almost all our food from scratch, so there was no "just open a can" of anything. That included babyfood. So, while taking a break from laundry she'd cook a batch of, say, carrots, and them put them through the mill and strain them for the baby(ies). Feed them, and then do all the washing up that went with meal prep. And change the baby/toddler and clean all that up. Put the baby (ies) down for their nap. And then back to washing/ironing. Her hands would get really red and sore, too.
But you know, I also remember we had way fewer clothes than people do now, and I don't think it had to do with our socioeconomic status. At all my friends' and relatives' homes everything would fit neatly in a closet and a chest of drawers. It wasn't until the late 60s that I remember people just going nuts buying lots of clothes. (They were cheaper by then, I guess? Or maybe people had more disposable income?) And, as far as keeping the workload in the laundry down, when I was small, we wore more in the way of underclothes - undershirts for all, almost all the time. Little girls also tended to have little aprons or pinafores that they were dressed in if they were going to do something messy. In our house, we had "good clothes" and "play clothes" and I have no doubt that the "play clothes" would have stood up on their own in the corner from the dirt we ground into them. But we wore the same dirty ones every day unless they really reeked, because we were only going to add to the layer of sediment crusted onto them anyway.
My mother (and most of the housewives) would have never worked in the kitchen without an apron for clothing protection. And then, there was the infamous "house dress" - very comfortable to wear around the house while working, but you didn't set foot outside of the house wearing it! (Frump central!) In addition to all that work at home, one had to get tidied up to go out to shop. My grandmother always wore pearls and white gloves to go into town. Unless it was before Easter, when she had brown/black ones.
But thinking... far as clothes, there was much less in the way of synthetics, really, although they were starting to become widely available by then. So there were armpit guards that went into clothing and could be taken out and washed. Wool and linen didn't get tossed into the washer - they went as long as they possibly could before being taken to dry cleaners. I had a school uniform - one wool overskirt with an attached bib, two school uniform shirts, one school tie, one school beanie-cap, and two pairs of regulation gray wool kneesocks. I had to wear a full-length slip, and the slip and the shirts were washed weekly. The uniform, maybe once a quarter went to the drycleaners if airing it out didn't help it or I'd spilled something on it.
The socks got washed in the sink and dried on the radiator as needed. (I hated those socks - wool makes me itch! The perfect uniform for a strict Catholic elementary school, that.
) As far as adults, blue-collar guys' wives had it rougher, as it's tough to keep a stinky, sweaty, manual-laborer kinda guy's clothes clean and fresh. My dad was a school teacher, with his one suit and white shirts, so my mom got off light. (He also had a "good" suit kept for Sundays, special occasions, and funerals.)
Wednesday was mending/sewing (my mom made a lot of our stuff) and general housework. Thursday was shopping day - my mother's day out. She didn't drive, so she walked or took buses everywhere. When we were little, we were in tow. Friday was house-cleaning day - floors, walls, dusting, vacuuming, polishing, whatevering. Saturday my dad was home so everything had to be "just so" by then or he would notice it. I don't remember much of what my mom did on Saturdays, but I seriously doubt it was anything like laying around. There were three meals that had to be cooked, and all the prep/washing up from that. And after supper we all had to have our baths and have our hair washed, combed, put in rags, etc., for church the next day. (We had one bathtub, so the work was sequential squirming don't-want-to-have-a-bath kids.)
On Sunday Mom caught a break - my father always made breakfast after church. Pancakes that you could have shingled a roof with (they were really bad). And she only had the one big meal to cook, but since all the kids were home from school on Saturdays and Sundays, they got to do the dishes.
It was so much easier working outside the home, when my turn came around. Plus, I had all the appliances and could (and did) eat out a lot. Most of the people I worked with just prior to my retirement would have a cleaner come in one day a week, and they dropped the clothes off at the "fluff-and-fold" washing service. Hell of a lot easier of a life than being an old-school housewife!
