History of starching fabric

Laundry starch: from medieval luxury to Victorian mass market

Starch has come a long way: from a sour mix boiled and brewed to a press-button spray. Manufactured starch that could be conveniently mixed at home as "cold starch" without boiling was available by the 19th century, suitable for clothes that didn't need a perfectly clear starch mixture. Victorian science and new styles of commerce made starch into a branded product. Buying it neatly packaged instead of in lumps was not just convenient; it suggested a "modern", well-prepared formula. No wonder one company made its selling point, from about 1881, the cardboard box its starch was sold in. (See advertising photo right)

It's often said that starching was "introduced" in the 16th century when it was essential for fineruffs and fluted collars, but that's not accurate. Starch was already in use for fine linens and laces, but in the 1500s starchmaking became more organised and commercial in Northern Europe. Flanders, home of the famous Flemish lace, was one of the earliest centres of starch manufacturing and skilful use. A Dutchwoman brought some of that knowledge to Elizabethan London, and set herself up as an expert at a time when there was high demand for well laundered and elaborate collars and cuffs. And that's why some websites tell us that starch "arrived" in 1564.

Early use of starch

Laundry was not a hot topic for medieval writers and there's not a lot known about it before the age of ruffs. The first clues in English are from the 14th century.* Then 'starch for kerchiefs' appeared in a 1440 dictionary.* Also around 1440, we know the nuns of Syon Abbey were starching altar cloths and other church linens. Only starch "made of herbes" could be used for communion linen.* This was probably prepared from the roots of the cuckoo-pint flower (arum maculatum or starchwort):

The most pure and white starch is made of the rootes of the Cuckoo-pint, but most hurtful for the hands of the laundresse that have the handling of it, for it chappeth, blistereth, and maketh the hands rough and rugged and withall smarting.
Gerard's Herbal, 1633

Ordinary starch was made by boiling bran in water, then letting it stand for three days, according to a 15th century recipe.* Once the bran had been strained out, cloth was dipped in the sour, starchy water, dried, then smoothed and polished with a slickstone. For obvious reasons starch was a bit of a luxury. Who had time for all that? Although professional 'starchers' existed before elaborate ruffs came into fashion*, from that time on there were more starchmakers, and more laundresses who could handle fine lawn and cambric trimmings.

Coloured starch

The 17th century saw a controversial fashion for ruffs laundered with "yellow starch", and then red or green starch. In London this provoked disapproval, mockery, and was linked with scandal. (See Renaissance Clothing.) The best-known colour was also the earliest:blue starch. Used in moderation, this made whites seem whiter, and not blue at all.

Tinted starch came back in Victorian times. Packeted écru and buff sold well for use on blonde lace and beige/cream colours, while blue starch continued popular for brightening whites. More unusual colours were marketed but didn't sell as well.

JUST LANDED: Reckitt's COLOURED STARCH, Pink, Ecru, Heliotrope, in boxes 6d. each, far superior to any other brands.
The Mercury, Hobart, Tasmania, 1896

Gloss, glaze, and gleam

Recipes and household tips from the past remind us that most fabrics looked limp and crumpled after laundering. There were special instructions for starching delicate, droopy muslins. Starch helped make clothes and table linen firmer and glossier, and you could add extra ingredients for an even better finish. A little candle grease or cooking fat went into starch mixtures for more gloss. Salt was the most common ingredient recommended for helping the ironing to go smoothly.

There are various things which diferent people mix with their starch, such as alum, gum arabic, and tallow, but if you do put anything in, let it be a little isinglass, for that is by far the best. About an ounce to a quarter of a pound of starch will be sufficient.
The complete servant maid: or young woman's best companion. Containing full, plain, and easy directions... , Anne Barker, c1770

All the well-known recipes were imitated by 19th and 20th century manufacturers who emphasised gloss in their advertising and chose brand names like Fairy Glaze. Borax was often added to increase gloss. Not sticking to the iron and ease of mixing were other key qualities. Added bluing was a desirable extra for use on white laundry. However much soaking, boiling, scrubbing and bleaching you did, blue would make whites gleam more brightly.

Starchmaking could take up to a month, with long boiling, soaking, draining, rinsing, drying and so on. In the 17th century the use of wheat was criticised as wasting food on fashion. The 18th century saw experimentation with different sources of starch, including horse chestnuts and potatoes. In the 19th century new ingredients and manufacturing methods were developed in the quest for pure white, refined starch. Rice starch was considered to give a good glazed finish. Corn starch made a more opaque mixture but could be made at home. There were recipes for this and other starches in US domestic advice manuals. It was also used in North American branded laundry starch products: often called "gloss starch" to distinguish it from cooking starch.

Even when some starch could be used "cold", home boiling with water and other additives continued. It depended not only on the type of starch but on the kind of fabric, the judgment of the launderer etc. etc. Some starch mixes were milky and more suitable for thicker fabrics. Good laundresses were expected to "clear-starch": preparing transparent starch mixtures and knowing how to use them. Clear-starching meant keeping delicate muslin and similar fabrics from being clogged with starch granules in the loose weave, and avoiding thickening caused by visible traces of starch clinging to the threads.

History of washing machines up to 1800

Early washing machines, inventors, advertising, washerwomen

This is not just a story of inventions, inventors and their patents. Patents don't tell us enough about the earliest washing machines. We want to know what machines were actually manufactured. Who sold them? Who bought them? Did people like them?

Before 1800 not many people had seen a washing machine, let alone used one. For another century after that they were not found in many homes, even in developed countries where the industrial revolution was well under way. Some of the earliest went to institutions as well as private houses. A 1790s British washing machine ad targeted "the guardians of all charitable foundations, the governors of all public hospitals, and the commanders of ships and vessels appointed to long voyages".

Mechanising laundry work raised social questions. How would this affect the poorest women of all, who depended on employment as laundresses? Two of the earliest washing machine promoters, Schäffer and Beetham (see below), felt they should discuss this when they were writing about the advantages of their machines. A satirical writer also commented:

Improvements were always received by the wisest in the world, whilst the prejudiced part...would for ever be inimical to reformation. ...The marvellous washing mill of Beetham's...has met the curses, execrations, and anathema of all the old laundresses, and young linen drapers in London: what then? Is not its utility apparent to every apprentice in the laundry? Are the caps and aprons of your ladies...to be cruelly tortured and torn by the hands of a drunken washerwoman?
Thomas Hastings, The Regal Rambler, 1793

The idea of washing by machine goes back a long way, but nothing practical happened until the mid-1700s. Before that, three early designs take turns being put forward as "first washing machine ever". An early 17th century book by Jacopo Strada's grandson Ottavio showed his 15th century idea for a washing machine, probably intended for use in textile manufacturing. Then in the 1670s John Hoskins experimented with putting fine laundry into a thick bag that could be soaked before squeezing with a "wheel and cylinder" mechanism. A 1691 English patent referred to an "engine" with a long list of possible uses, including clothes washing. But patents were different then. No drawings were submitted, it is unlikely any washing machine was made, and patents were more a nod of royal approval for someone's business plans, than serious support for inventors. *

So, no relevance there to anyone tackling a heap of dirty laundry, as far as we can tell. It's not until the mid-1700s that we see signs of progress with labour-saving washing machines. Versions of the tub in the first picture were on sale in London by 1752, when it was said to have been "long in use" in the North of England.* It is clearly related to the washing dollies that were common home laundry tools in the 19th century.

In Germany Jacob Schäffer was inspired by a magazine article about a Danish version of an English washing machine like the "Yorkshire Maiden" above. In 1766 he announced his improved version (pictured left) in a book explaining its advantages, and describing his experiments with washing different kinds of clothing. He was a little concerned about the effect on washerwomen, but concluded they need not fear much loss of income. They would still be needed to fill the tub, work the machine, hang laundry out to dry,starch, iron and more, and their health would benefit if they could stay dry while working in cold weather. His machine would save on lye, fuel for heating water, soap etc. Schäffer also wrote a book of letters, supposedly from one woman to her friend about her wonderful new washing machine. He oversaw the manufacture of sixty machines of this kind, and the design was successful enough to be manufactured in Germany for another century, with slight adaptations. *

There were several English designs patented before 1800. Rogerson's (1780) and Sidgier's (1782) machines are two of the earliest. It is unclear whether Sidgier got any benefit from his innovative rotating drum design, though it was probably quite influential over the following decades. A turning cylinder with water passing through it, like Sidgier's, was the basic idea used for machines in many of the earliest hospital and commercial laundries.

In 1787 an energetic washing machine publicist came on the scene. Edward Beetham, ex-actor, writer, bookseller etc., hooked up with Thomas Todd, who had just been granted a patent for a "machine for the washing and ironing of linen, woollen and cotton stuffs, silks, carpets, and every other woven or knit fabric". Beetham's PR campaign for machines sold by "Messrs. Todd, Beetham and Co.", and later for his own, outdid Schäffer's promotional efforts in Germany and got his products more attention than any other existing English washing machines. Beetham advertised in The Times for October 10th that they had "brought to perfection":

A machine for washing linen which will, in an equal space of time, wash as much linen as six or eight of the ablest washerwomen, without the use of lees [lye], and with only one third of the fire and soap.
...the common objection to machines, that they destroy the linen is, in the present invention, totally removed... entirely free from friction....works by pressure only...

Before long Beetham announced he was sole partner. In autumn 1790 he started advertising a "new patent portable washing mill". He had bought the rights to a patent granted to James Wood. (See LH column) Once a week he demonstrated this mill working "safely", sometimes with a bank bill in amongst the linen. He offered a variety of sizes and prices and a special "navy" version for shipboard use, and assured people they would save "15 shillings in every guinea" on laundry costs. "Patent chain net, for wringing" was also available. An anonymous book apparently written by Beetham quotes an acquaintance:

...the Washing Mill is not to be improved. The advantage of cleaning by pressure...your method...will not injure a cobweb...
...Before [my wife] had your mill, she employed three women full eighteen hours; by means of your mill the whole is performed much better in seven hours, by one servant, and a girl to turn the Mill, aged 11 years.
Observations on the utility of patents, and on the sentiments of Lord Kenyon respecting that subject. Including free remarks on Mr. Beetham's patent washing mills; and hints to those who solicit for patents. London, 1791

This washing machine certainly got attention, but it is hard to know how many homes or institutions used one regularly. Beetham put a series of enthusiastic washing machine ads in newspapers and on fliers. He said he had sold 1121 washing mills in the year from May 1790 to 1791. Apparently 300 people liked them so much they came back for another "in consequence of their entire approbration of the first, and for their different houses". In 1792 he persuaded aworkhouse to publish a "satisfied customer" review. (See LH column) A letter to an 1832 magazine said the writer still had one in "pretty good condition". Did these machines all end up as firewood, or is there one around somewhere?

There was a bit of a washing machine trend in late 18th century London, though most people went on managing without. It wasn't just Beetham pressing the well-to-do public to buy. Rival ads appeared from Coates & Hancock. Each had independently patented different machines. Working together, they claimed their machines were so efficient there was no more need for hand-scrubbing cuffs and collars, and the gentle action meant the "finest muslins can be washed more safely than can possibly be done by hand". They offered a money-back guarantee for the first month after purchase.

Kendall also advertised his invention in 1791, calling it the Patent Laundress, and repeated the usual promises of safe methods and significant savings:

Patent Laundress, or Washing Machine
Is sold by Mr Kendall, the Inventor and Patentee
at No. 7, Charing-Cross, London
This ingenious Invention, made wholly of wood, is highly esteemed by men of science, and persons of every description; and without the parade of enumerating the saving qualities, it possesses them all, in the most eminent degree. The act of Wringing, so destructive to linen, is changed for Pressure, which cannot injure, and is made to fit the Machine or a Rincer, a most valuable appendage, which make it the completest Machine now known for the purpose of Washing. 
Observer, 1791

Several more patents were granted in 1790s Britain, and there were other washing machines on sale too. Perhaps Beetham suffered from competition. By late 1791 his ads said that since people were imitating his idea, he would offer some lesser machines for half the price of the true patented originals. That would have brought the price of the smallest 8-shirt model down to 2 guineas: more than 6 weeks wages for a labourer, and about 2-3 weeks wages for a carpenter. (Several washing machine designers were carpenters or cabinet-makers.) The tide of advertising died down after 1793, though Beetham went on selling washing machines until at least 1808, alongside a patent mangle, churn, and "chiropedal car".

Cutting the costs of paid labour was a big selling point, and it was not only adult washerwomen whose lives could be affected by this. The machines were considered easy enough for a child to operate. Coates and Hancock said a girl of 12 could work two of their machines more easily than a man could work one of any other sort. In fact, a 7-year old could manage the job, they said. A girl would not have earned more than a few pennies for a day's help.

Coates and Hancock also patented their own wringing machines. Like Beetham's "chain net wringer", and rather like Hoskins' bag a century before, theirs were based on a netting or cloth wrapper for the laundry which was then twisted/turned/squeezed, more or less gently. Netting wringer designs continue into the 19th century, but the box mangle seems more like the forerunner of a classic wringer with rollers.

An 18th century enthusiasm for science and rational progress inspired some inventors. Murrell's machine (above left) was given a trial by, and described in the magazine of, a society for "the encouragement of agriculture, arts, manufactures and commerce" in the SW of England. The instructions for use are more objective than the newspaper ads. They admit some stains may need extra attention and end with "A stout lad or man may perform the more laborious part of the process". "Scientific" inventors were also developing washing mills for the textile industry.

Washing machines were not unheard of in late 18th century America, though the USA was yet to become a front-runner in laundry technology. Beetham's washing mill was advertised in ""Woods' Newark Gazette" (Newark, NJ's first newspaper) in 1791. A few years later came the first US patent related to washing clothes. This is the 1797 patent obtained by Nathaniel Briggs, mentioned on hundreds of websites. It's often said to be a washing machine, but we can't know for sure because a fire destroyed early US patent records.

History of Ironing Boards

Ironing tables, ironing boards, ironing blankets

It may seem obvious that ironing has to be done on a flat surface, but there have been exceptions. Chinese pan irons were sometimes used on cloth stretched in mid air between two people. Ancestors of the ironing board include, in the West, the whalebone smoothing boards buried with Viking ladies, and in the East, the stone slabs used with Korean ironing sticks. (See'history of ironing' page.) The smoothing boards, about 33 cm or 1 foot long, are thought to have been used with the glass linen smoothers also found at Viking burial sites. Boards small enough to hold on the lap were still in use in the 19th century. Known as press boards, these were often used for ironing seams while dressmaking, but could also be used when pressing laundry.

A kitchen table or a board supported by two chairs were both in common use for ironing before the days of the mass-market folding ironing board. (See picture left of a woman using a flatiron on a board balanced over chairs.) There was plenty of advice in 19th century housekeeping books about what size an ironing table should be (various opinions), what wood it should be made of (pale softwood for cleanliness, oak for strength), and how it should be covered (thick woollen ironing-blanket in white baize or red flannel, with a sheet or ironing-cloth on top).

Swanskin was often recommended as an ironing blanket in England. Nothing to do with large feathered wings, but a dense scarlet fabric used to cover ironing tables. Using your red woollen cloak for this purpose was frowned upon by 19th century English women writers, but it must have been quite common or it wouldn't have been mentioned so regularly. (See quotes below) In George Washington's household at Mount Vernon in Virginia the ironing blankets were made of thick woollen "fearnought".

Folding ironing boards arrived as the Victorians channelled their inventiveness into finding better ways of managing a household. The first US patents for these appeared in the 1860s. Some shapes that we would now call ironing boards were called ironing tables. Inventors designed ironing bureaus, and even ironing tables combined with quilting frames. Different boards were made for specialised tasks like ironing sleeves, and there were ironing board accessories for special jobs like ironing bonnets. While the woman (above right) in North Dakota in 1940 has a folding board, she is not using an electric iron, but a sadiron with detachable handle, probably the famous Mrs. Potts' patented iron. Note the two spare iron bases heating on the stove.

This US patent from 1866 (left) described "A new and Improved Ironing-Board adapted principally for the use of ladies’ dress and other skirts, shirt-fronts, or any piece of clothing that requires to be ironed single, and, with the bonnet-block attached to the neck of the ironing board, bonnets and other pieces of clothing may be ironed with great advantage . . The nature of my invention consists in an improvement in the ordinary ironing board, over which it possesses many advantages. It is lighter and durable, and when extended it can be placed anywhere, and when not in use can be folded to the capacity of an ordinary board, which renders it very convenient."   

Washing clothes and household linen: In 19th century

Washing clothes and household linen: 19th century laundry methods and equipment

The information here follows on from a page about the earlier history of laundry. Both parts offer an overview of the way clothes and household linen were washed in Europe, North America, and the English-speaking world, and are also a guide to the other laundry history pages on this website. The links take you to more detailed information and more pictures.

A tub of hot water, a washboard in a wooden frame with somewhere to rest the bar of laundry soap in pauses from scrubbing - this is a familiar image of how our great-grandmothers washed the laundry. It's not wrong, but it's only part of the picture. Factory-made washboards with metal or glass scrubbing surfaces certainly spread round the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and bars of soap were cheap and plentiful by the late 1800s, but there were other ways of tackling the laundry too.

In the idealised images of early advertising or today's nostalgia products, the washtub is on a stand near a bright, breezy clothesline, though in reality it may have been in a cramped kitchen or dark tenement courtyard, or by a tumbledown shack. Alternatives to the classic washboard and tub included dolly tubs (photo left) used with a dolly stick (aka peggy or maiden) in the UK and parts of northern Europe. These were tall tubs, also called possing- or maidening-tubs, in which large items were stirred and beaten with dollies or a plunger on a long handle.

Water could be heated in a large metal boiler or copper on a stove. A big pot boiling over an outdoor fire suited much of rural America. In urban areas there were public laundries: some with hot water and modern equipment, some much simpler and older, like the communal open-air sinks with a water supply in Italian cities. There were washing machines of a kind, but not many homes had them. Ideas from inventors working on washing machines helped improve the design of simple washboards and dollies. A plain wringer was the most common piece of home laundry machinery in 1900.

There were huge changes in domestic life between 1800 and 1900. Soap, starch, and other aids to washing at home became more abundant and more varied. Washing once a week on Monday or "washday" became the established norm. As the Western world prospered, chemists, factory-owners and advertisers invented and sold more laundry ingredients to more homes. English-speaking countries saw riverside washing, laundry bats, intermittent "great washes", and the use ofashes and lye tail away. Later Victorians thought these methods were old-fashioned or quaint. English travellers sometimes described "foreign" laundry routines as very inferior to the "new" ones they expected of their servants at home.

An 1864 sketch (right) from the American Civil War shows two soldiers hard at work, with equipment old and new. One is using a bat on a washing bench, an almost-forgotten method that was hardly used by the next generation in the USA and UK, though it survived longer in some parts of Europe, along with communal washing by rivers and in washhouses. The other soldier's tub and washboard, though, stayed popular for many years to come. Washboards were also used without a tub; they could be carried to the riverside.

It may seem odd to say that using soap generously was a modern, "advanced" way of tackling dirty laundry, but in 1800 soap was used economically. It was mixed into hot water for the main wash, and extra might be used for spot stain treatment, but everyday linen might still be cleansed with ash lye. Some of the poorer people in Europe continued to wash their "ordinary" things with no soap or minimal soap. Laundry soap was often the cheap, soft, dark soap that was fairly easy to mix into hot water. Before the 19th century hard soap could be made at home by people who had plenty of ashes and fat, with warm, dry weather and salt to set the soap. If you bought it, you would buy a piece cut from a large block.

By the end of the century there were plenty of wrapped bars of commercial, branded laundry soap sold at moderate prices. To mix up a lather, you could grate flakes off the bar of soap, or even buy ready-made soap flakes in a box. Soap powder had been known for a few decades, and from about 1880 it was quite widely available. Developments in science, industry and commerce had a significant impact on household chores.

From the mid-nineteenth century, an overall increase in demand was one of the consequences of rising living standards. A growing concern for cleanliness, associated with health and with fashion in the form of whiteness for clothing items and linen, easily translated into widespread consumption, even as the low cost of soap, starch, and blue enabled their definition both as household necessities and as inputs to an expanding laundry industry.
Roy Church and Christine Clark, Product Development of Branded, Packaged Household Goods in Britain, 1870–1914, Enterprise & Society (Sep 2001)

Other changes in the course of the century included factory-made metal tubs starting to replace wooden ones. Mass-produced tongs were more affordable and more likely to replace sticks for lifting wet washing. Clotheslines, pegs, and pins became more widespread. Home-made clothes pegs and indoor drying racks were copied and/or improved by manufacturers supplying hardware stores. Improvements in starch production led to a range of products with small differences, packaged differently, and aimed at different users. Laundry blue was no longer a mere ingredient in "blue starch". By the 1870s it was produced in an array of different formats with different packaging gimmicks: wrapped squares, balls, distinctive bags or bottles of liquid bluing. Tinted starches, dyes, and products for restoring faded black clothes while you laundered them were on sale at prices people with modest incomes could afford. Borax and washing soda were packaged under various names. Borax was even used as a brand name for soaps and starches, and promoted as a miracle all-purpose cleaning product.

There were laundry services aimed at the "middling" people too. While the upper classes went on employingwasherwomen and/or general servants, there were various cheaper "send-out" laundry services in the later 19th century and early 20th, including laundries that brought both domestic laundry and linen from hotels etc. to a "hand-finished" standard. The simplest were wet wash (US) and bag wash (UK) arrangements where you sent off a bundle of dirty laundry to be washed elsewhere. Ironing was done at home at this bottom end of the market. In some places a mangle woman with a box mangle would charge pennies for pressing household linen and everyday clothing.

History of laundry

Washing clothes and household linen: early laundry methods and tools

Once upon a time a metal washboard and bar of hard soap with a tub of hot water was a new-fangled way of tackling laundry, though today it's a common picture of "old-fashioned" laundering. (Read about this on a page about the later history of laundry in the 1800s.) What went before? How did people wash clothes without the factory-made equipment and cleansing products of the 19th century?

This page is an introduction to the history of washing and drying household linen and clothing over several centuries: from medieval times up until the 19th century. It concerns Europe, North America, and the English-speaking world more than anywhere else. It's not only an overview; it's also a guide to the other laundry history pages on this website. The links take you to more detailed information and more pictures. Along the way you'll find answers to questions that OldandInteresting gets asked a lot - like, "Is it true people used to wash their clothes in urine?".

Rivers, rocks, washing bats, boards

Washing clothes in the river is still the normal way of doing laundry in many less-developed parts of the world. Even in prosperous parts of the world riverside washing went on well into the 19th century, or longer in rural areas - even when the river was frozen. Stains might be treated at home before being taken to the river. You could take special tools with you to the river to help the work: like a washing bat or a board to scrub on. Washing bats and beetles were also useful for laundering elsewhere, and have been used for centuries, sometimes for smoothing dry cloth too. (See 14th century picture left and 16th century painting above.)

Long thin washing bats are not very different from sticks. Both can be used for moving cloth around as well as for beating the dirt out of it. Doing this with a piece of wood was called possing, and various styles of possers, washing dollies etc. developed as an improvement on plain tree branches. Squarish washing bats could double up as a scrub board. Simple wooden boards can be taken to the riverside, or rocks at the edge of the water may be used as scrubbing surfaces. (The more sophisticated kind of wash board with ridged metal in a wooden frame came later.) Two other techniques for shifting dirt are slapping clothes or trampling with bare feet. (See below left.)

Domestic laundry was often treated like newly woven textiles being "finished". Today we have only vague ideas about how the fabrics in our shop-bought clothes are manufactured, but traditional laundry methods often followed techniques used by weavers, including home weavers.

Lye, bucking, soaking

Soaking laundry in lye, cold or hot, was an important way of tackling white and off-white cloth. It was called bucking, and aimed to whiten as well as cleanse. Coloured fabrics were less usual than today, especially for basic items like sheets and shirts. Ashes and urine were the most important substances for mixing a good "lye". As well as helping to remove stains and encourage a white colour, these act as good de-greasing agents.

Bucking involved lengthy soaking and was not a weekly wash. Until the idea of a once-a-week wash developed, people tended to have a big laundry session at intervals of several weeks or even months. Many women had agricultural and food preparation duties that would make it impossible for them to "waste" time on hours of laundry work every week. If you were rich you had lots of household linen, shirts, underclothing etc. and stored up the dirty stuff for future washing. If you were poor your things just didn't get washed very often. Fine clothing, lace collars and so on were laundered separately.

Soap, mainly soft soap made from ash lye and animal fat, was used bywasherwomen whose employers paid for it. Soap was rarely used by the poorest people in medieval times but by the 18th century soap was fairly widespread: sometimes kept for finer clothing and for tackling stains, not used for the whole wash. Starch and bluing were available for better quality linen and clothing. A visitor to England just before 1700 sounded a little surprised at how much soap was used in London:

At London, and in all other Parts of the Country where they do not burn Wood, they do not make Lye. All their Linnen, coarse and fine, is wash'd with Soap. When you are in a Place where the Linnen can be rinc'd in any large Water, the Stink of the black Soap is almost all clear'd away.
M. Misson's Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England (first published in French, 1698)

Drying, bleaching

The Grand Wash or the Great Wash were names for the irregular "spring cleaning" of laundry. Soaking in lye and bucking in large wooden bucking tubs were similar to processes used in textile manufacturing. So was the next stage - drying and bleaching clothes and fabrics out of doors. Sunshine helped bleach off-white cloth while drying it. Sometimes cloth was sprinkled at intervals with water and/or a dash of lye to lengthen the process and enhance bleaching.

Towns, mansions, and textile weavers had an area of mown grass set aside as a bleaching ground, or drying green, where household linens and clothing could be spread on grass in the daylight. Early settlers in America established communal bleaching areas like those in European towns and villages. Both washing and drying were often public and/or group activities. In warmer parts of Europe some cities provided communal laundry spaces with a water supply.

People also dried clothes by spreading them on bushes. Large houses sometimes had wooden frames or ropes for drying indoors in poor weather. Outdoor drying frames and clotheslines are seen in paintings from the 16th century, but most people would have been used to seeing laundry spread to dry on grass, hedgerows etc. Clothes pegs/pins seem to have been rare before the 18th century. Pictures show sheets etc. hung over clotheslines with no pegs.

Richmond, Virginia in the 1770s:
Customers took their laundry to washerwomen's homes and returned there to collect clean clothes.... ...Much washing took place in public. ... washerwomen "boyle[d]...the cloaths with soap" ... Laundresses then gathered near the market house where Shockoe Creek approached the James River. They "washed in the stream" and then allowed clothes to dry on a nearby pasture...
James Sidbury, Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia, 1730-1810
Quotes and info from Journal of John Harrower: An Indentured Servant in the Colony of Virginia 1773 1776

Laundry History

Laundry was probably first done in streams and letting the stream carry away the materials causing stains and smells. Laundry may still be done this way in some less industrialized areas and rural regions. Agitation helps remove the dirt, so the laundry is often rubbed, twisted, or slapped against flat rocks. Wooden bats or clubs could be used to help with beating the dirt out. These were called washing beetles.

Various chemicals may be used increase the solvent power of water, such as the compounds in soaprootor yucca-root used by Native American tribes. Soap, a compound made from lye (from wood-ash) andfat, is an ancient and very common laundry aid. However, modern washing machines typically use powdered or liquid laundry detergent in place of soap.

When no streams were available, laundry was done in water-tight vats or vessels. Sometimes large metal cauldrons were filled with fresh water and heated over a fire; boiling water was even more effective than cold in removing dirt. The washboard, a corrugated slab of a hard material such as metal, replaced rocks as a surface for loosening soil.

Once clean, the clothes were wrung out — twisted to remove most of the water. Then they were hung up on poles or clotheslines to dry, or sometimes just spread out on clean grass.

Joke

Wet Cleaning / Dry Cleaning

Although water is used...this technology is very different from conventional washing.

Wetcleaning is a complement to dry cleaning. Many garments labeled “dry clean only” can in fact be professionally wetcleaned. Wetcleaning leaves your garments looking immaculate, smelling fresh and feeling soft to the touch.

To professionally wetclean any garment requires a vast understanding of fabrics, the cleaning process and experience that only Mr. Bright can ensure. Even though wetcleaning uses water, it is much more specialized than home laundry, which can ruin many garments.

To really understand the beauty of professional wetcleaning, it’s important to know the basics of fine garment cleaning in general. To clean any garment or fabric requires that four elements be present: solvent, detergents, agitation and heat. Wetcleaning balances these four elements to create the optimum cleaning environment—one that neither shrinks, stretches, fades or alters the garment.

During cleaning non-toxic detergents and conditioners are used to lift dirt out of the garment and revitalize the fabric. The garments are agitated in the computerized wetcleaning machine just enough to extract the dirt and grime, but not enough to alter the structure, size or color.

The garments are then transferred to a high-tech drying unit that senses humidity as many as 400 times per minute. To ensure that no shrinkage occurs, the dryer automatically stops once the prescribed level of moisture is reached. During drying, the conditioners that were added earlier are heat-activated to soften and freshen the garment.