Commercial Laundry, Scotland 1935

[launderess]

Promo film of the old Castlebank Laundry, Anniesland, Glasgow Scotland.

Commercial laundries all over Europe and North American made similar promotions enticing households to send their washing out.

These industrial laundries were in competition with two main others; private laundresses, and or households that did their own washing. One or both did so largely by hand or using various electrically (or other fuel source) powered washing machines, mangles, ironers, etc....

Main audience however were household that had few if any mod cons; and thus Madame was still stuck in that age old three to four day process that was an orgy of soaking, scrubbing, boiling, mangling, rinsing, drying, starching, and ironing.

You'll notice in film some things one has spoken of previously.

Even for an "industrial" and "modern" laundry plenty of human labor is involved. This includes "shakers" (people who broke apart masses of laundry that came out of extractors before it could be finished), sorters, packers, etc..

https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/0434

 

[launderess]

In contrast

Today's modern nearly fully automated industrial/commercial laundries can put out in an hour or day work equal to a weeks worth from laundries of old.

For owners this translates into higher output using less resources including labor, all for less money.

 

[launderess]

Cost-u-Less

Was likely Castlebank's version of bundle service. Shirts and flatwork ironed by machine. Everything else washed, dried and returned folded. Woolens such as blankets, pulls, jumpers and so forth may have incurred a separate charge for "wet cleaning".

Type of wet cleaning done on a table with brushes was very common then for all sorts of things from woolens to suit jackets, trousers, dresses, etc... Today of course modern fully computer/electronic H-axis washers can handle most fine things. A commercial laundry of course has finishing equipment to dry/finish such things resorting them to proper condition (hopefully).

 

[launderess]

Where are the shirt collars?

Did you notice nearly all those shirts being processed did not have collars? How does that work?

Well in much of the UK well as elsewhere in world men still largely wore detachable shirt collars. Those would have been sent to their own laundry department.



According to lore invention of detachable shirt collar came from a (New York State, IIRC) housewife. Fed up with having to wash her husband's shirts when only the collar was dirty (which is normal even today), the good lady came up with idea of separating the two. Thus a shirt body could be worn once, twice or more before finally being sent to the wash. Meanwhile the collar depending upon level of soiling could be reused over and over before it too finally was laundered.

Starching and ironing of "stiff" collars was an art not every housewife or laundress could manage. It also was time consuming busywork that many were happy to get shot of.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I think I remember reading about "celluloid" collars which might not have absorbed body oils etc. like linen

 

[cuffs054]

I would love to have that service available today.

 

[launderess]

Celluloid

Was an early invention of a thermoplastic substance.

Problem is the stuff is highly flammable. In an era when heating, cooking and lighting still involved use of open or otherwise flames; well you can imagine what happened to those collars and or cuffs made from the stuff, not to mention anyone wearing.

https://www.sandburg.org/SandburgsHometown/SandburgsHometown_CelluloidCollars.html

That being said the idea was to save on laundering. A "plastic" collar that could be cleaned by wiping down with a damp cloth was streets better (in theory) by some than one which required laundering and starching.

You can still find versions of "plastic" collars; they are sold for use by priests and other clergy as an alternative to cotton or linen collars.

 

[launderess]

"I would love to have that service available today."

Don't know about where you live, but in NYC and elsewhere there are plenty of laundry services. Apps, pick-up and delivery, etc....

Bundle wash (aka Bachelor Service) pretty much still exists as "wash and fold". As in the domestic setting tumble drying has largely replaced ironing for nearly everything save shirts. Most places from your corner laundry/dry cleaner to larger operations will do wash and fold, but also separate out shirts for processing totally by machine or "hand finished". The latter simply means after a shirt is done via machines, someone steps in to touch things up.