A not so simple image

What is your least favorite task to do around your home? That is a sign of living a guess, unwanted tasks meant to keep you humble maybe, but unwanted none the less. Some of these tasks to help us stay healthy and can be almost soothing at times. When sewing there is always an unwanted consequence, laundry. I hate doing laundry but I love the outcomes, clean clothing and the look of it hanging to dry on the line. The simple image strangely is almost relaxing and a wink into time and I love that.

Norman Rockwell mid 20th century, all those task we dislike but must do

The invention of the washing machine diffidently made the task of easier but none the less it is still an almost unwanted task. Can you imagine the task before, dragging great basins, soap/lye(fine ash), sticks, battledores, never mind the laundry and perhaps chairs and something to do while you wait all the way to your laundry spot. You then need to fetch water which is why you dragged everything to the water, for it is much easier to carry everything to the water then the water to the laundry. You also need to get a fire started, boil the water. Meanwhile your largest basin you place your laundry a layer at a time, placing the clothing and then lye all the way to the top. The boiling water was then poured over top and when it came in contact with the lye it would form soap. You then would stir it, drain the water and do it again. Eventually you would take them to benches beat the cloth with wooden paddles called battledores before rinsing it in clean water and wringing it out. It would then be laid flat on the grass to beach in the sun. An all-day daunting task with a-lot of waiting, Waiting for the water to boil, waiting for the lye to sink into the clothing, waiting for it to dry. There are also images of people laying the clothing out on a green grassy knoll to bleach in the sun. Eventually the laundry was taken from the ground and hung on the line. The process changes, washboards replace stirring sticks and battledores and different soaps with more ideas of how to get rid of stains become available.

1582; A German Scene of women doing laundry. Washing and Beating with Battledores, laying it on the ground to bleach and hanging it

I have washed clothing in this method, the rinsing part is particularly enjoyable on a hot day, as you stand in cool water raising the cloth up and down, and splashing yourself in the process. Today there is not really a part as cooling to do. The image though of clothing hanging on the line is romantic, a glimpse perhaps to what is often thought of as a simpler time. Nothing was simple about it, but it was does make an amazing image.

The washing machine made the work a little easier to bare but these old style machines are a far cry from what sits in the laundry room today.