Oh My Dears!

[launderess]

I Love It!

"Do Not Use Tide, FAB...or other high sudsing detergents", on the wall sign. Bet many laundromats today would appreciate such a sign to post on their walls.

 

[gansky1]

This is the Philco and Bendix dealer's display at a trade show in Kansas City circa 1949

 

[launderess]

Modern Living Through Electricity

*LOL*

 

[westie2]

Free Dryers

One or two laundries where I grew up had steam dryers they pipe the steam from the boilers dirctly to the dryers. They collected the distilled water from them and gave it to the customers that wanted it for their steam irons. I think back then if you washed (either wringer or automatic) there you got free drying but if you brought in the clothes qas 5 or 10 cents a load. Both places had the big BOCK extractors but a laundry employee always operated them.
The one laundry that had both wringer washers and automatics May tag wringers old square tubs and Norge automatics. The wringer washers had live steam piped to them. You could do a good boil wash with them. They also used live steam to cook starch. They would mix the powdered starch in a wooden bucket with the cold water and hang it on a hook with a pipe and turn the steam on to cook it.

 

[swestoyz]

Greg - LOVE the photos, especially the factory one. I think the room full of women testing the Westy, Whirlpool, Bendix, Easy, and Hoover are actually in the R&R Building in Newton. Think that picture was featured in Maytag News sometime.

Ben

 

[mickeyd]

Magnifying, I can read in the window:

30 Bendix Washers

30 Minute Service

and free something else but the dark haired woman is blocking what may say Free Drying. You can see a "D" and a "Y" Maybe the jacked up spinner is free.

The first sign says: Recommended Weights for Best Washing Results, and then list of poundage but I can't get it ---Anybody else see it ???

 

[mickeyd]

Why one is in AWE of the OMAHAIAN

Not one but two people have posted about a vintage Easy Spin in Western NY, and now Greg had show us the machine in its true splendor. Just look at the three chrome rings. Dazzling and Dizzying......

speaking of which, Is it true that Our Beloved Jon Jet-cone is in bed with the vapors following a spell of orgiastic ecstasy after seeing 30 Bendii? The buzz is raving here ;'DDDDDD

Talk about vintage photos! Does it get any better than this?

 

[launderess]

Top Loaders

Are going the way of extractors in laundromats.

Ever increasing costs for water and restrictions thereof for commercial laundries, and other matters are causing many laundromats to dump top loaders in favour of front loading washing machines. You still find many top loaders in laundries located in apartment building laundries.

 

[whirlcool]

And just look at the Launderess' in their white dresses! At first I thought they were nurses, but they weren't wearing a hat! It also looks kind of like a waitresses outfit too.

I loke the poster which indicated the water level half way up the door!

 

[launderess]

Recently nabbed the same sort of uniform from fleaBay.

IIRC it says "Standard Laundry" on the inside label. Place was located on Wasbash Avenue in Chicago.

Simple little thing really, much better than wearing one's own things when handling other persons soiled linen.

L.

 

[tuthill]

I want a Bendix

 

[hilovane]

These pix are really something! The apartment complex my family lived in when I was a little kid (until 1960, when we moved into a house) had a communal laundry room (where our bikes, trikes, Radio Flyer wagons, and pedal cars had to be stored, as well)that had those old Bendix washing machines. There were Bendix dryers, too; they looked likje the '53 Duomatics, with a coin box on the side. And, yes, no laundry room of the day would be complete without that Bock extractor. It was an event for me when on my way home from Kindergarten one day, I saw a new Philco-Bendix washer being prepped for installation. I ran home like a bat outta hell, chenged from my "school clothes," and into my "play clothes" (remeber THOSE?) so I could run back, and watch the installation continue.

In tghat one picture, that wringer washer almost looks like a toy!
The first laundromat I ever saw with TL'ers, featured Speed Queen's.