Ironing With Ironrite: Making A New Day Out Of Tuesday - 1946 Educational Documentary

[philcobendixduo]

Great, if long, video of how to iron everything with the Ironrite.

I have never used an iron (or ironer) in my lifetime and never plan to.
What a lot of work - even with the Ironrite!
I buy only "wrinkle free" washable clothes, tablecloths, etc.

 

[iheartmaytag]

There is a difference between wrinkle resistant and wrinkle free.
Most of my clothes are Permanent press, and even though they are passable a freshly starched pressed shirt will "PoP" in contrast.

Same with table linens, though you can set a nice table everyday with a wrinkle resistant table cloth, if you have something formal it must be pressed.

My mother used to iron all the sheets and even our T-Shirts. Yea, I don't do that.

 

[launderess]

Consumer Reports Tested Ironers

At least twice that one knows of; late 1940's and again in the middle 1950's. Each time the "shoe under roll" models (Bendix and Ironrite are the only two) earned top scores for performance, results and speed of ironing flatwork which is mostly what households wanted ironers for in the first place.

CR mentions as of 1956 that they stopped testing ironers due to declining sales. It is around that time you start to see CR test clothes dryers. Have the Buying Guides from 1950 through 1959 and by 1957 (IIRC) CR stops covering ironers but begins detailed coverage of dryers.

CR gives lie to the claims of manufacturers that ironers could do "all" household ironing. They found best results came with flatwork. Clothing and items requiring intricate work such as shirts could often be done faster with an ironing board and iron. They did note that much depended up on the skill of the operator. That is with practice and gained experience on probably could do shirts and such easily on an ironer. However one suspects not many women bothered.

Even by the 1950's sending shirts out to the laundry or dry cleaners wasn't very expensive. When you add up the costs and time in laundering them at home including the ironing it probably was cheaper to send the things out. Of course if no local service could return His Nibb's shirts without damage then guess who got saddled with the task?

 

[iheartmaytag]

My mother used to take in ironing

She charged 10 cents a piece and she kept us kids fed, maybe not what we always wanted, but we had macaroni.   My Dad worked, but with a bad heart, he died when I was 13.  Mom could whip out a shirt in under two minutes.  

 

She later got an Ironette used from Penny power but as Dear Laundress said, she mostly used it for large flat work, table linens and sheets.  She could do shirts with fairly good results, but not as quickly as she could do by hand. 

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

I remember that IronRite video where they show a woman ironing a small girls frilly dress with ruffles on it. On a Ironrite! Now THAT took some skill!

My mother was one to iron everything, including the flat bedsheets and undershirts.
She used an iron and ironing board. My aunt had an ironer, my mother called it a mangle.

I always wanted to see it in operation, but neither my mother nor my aunt would let me hang around if it was in use. I'd get shooed out of the house. My mother told me they call it a mangle for a reason. It rips off the arms and legs of little boys and are dangerous to even be around. My mother always said that's why she never had or even wanted one! Much too dangerous.

 

[launderess]

As someone who owns more ironing equipment than a laundry

Am here to tell you domestic ironers like so many other domestic appliances were *not* the best thing since sliced bread as claimed.

Yes, if one has tons of flatwork to iron each week an ironer can be a labour saver. However the results can range from "acceptable" to a creased and scorched mess. Using a domestic ironer as with really large commercial units requires acceptance of certain flaws. Things like creased or "cat whiskers", not straight or neatly ironed hems/selvages, hems and selvages not straight and indeed certain flatwork not that way either.

When ironing is done by hand property one hand is used to stretch and smooth whilst the other wields the iron. With practice and experience the result is a smooth and dry surface. Some commercial ironers do a decent enough job mimicking this work, domestic ironers however are another story.

The main problem with domestic ironers is they rely upon a single roll to do all the work. This means in theory one pass is supposed to dry and smooth the work. Where this does not happen things must be passed through again or even again still to achieve the proper result.

 

[eronie]

video

Did anyone notice the Twin Tub DEXTER Wringer in the first part of the video?
I've never seen one of those before