White sheets

[gadgetgary]

When did 'colored' sheets hit the market?

I always remember my grandmother having strictly white sheets.

My mother only had white sheets.

And the sheets and pillowcases were always ironed.

 

[rpm]

Those wonderful cotton sheets

My grandmother died in 1988 and at her auction sale I got a bunch of her sheets.
Those crazy 100% old cotton sheets.They have been washed a thousand times in a wringer washer and hung out to dry, never in a dryer. They are crunchy off the line and as soft as silk.
I think I am down to 2.
Always ironed. The pillow cases were white with either blue or pink trim.
I am going looking for those sheets right now.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Probably the 1960's...

when they introduced all those Bri-nylon materials.

Apparently back in the 50's, a neighbour of my Great Grandmother who stayed in a flat, decided to dye white sheets purple. This neighbour was a teacher, and caused consternation in the street, when the sheets were pegged out to dry.

 

[toggleswitch]

oh the scandal of it all!

~decided to dye white sheets purple.

PURPLE bedsheets?

radical lesbian, druggie, prostitute, communist, tree-hugger hippie psycho non-confromist she must have been

LOL LOL LOL

 

[launderess]

Coloured cotton bed linens came on the American market around the 1920's or so. European markets stung to traditional white with perhaps coloured embroidery instead of traditional white around the 1940's or so when Porthault launched the first coloured cotton linens.

White was preferred by many Europeans, for several reasons, mainly because housewives and housekeepers had sanitary burned into their heads, and as we all know whites can be heavily bleached and or boiled, whereas colours cannot.

Personally LOVE vintage white percale and muslin bed sheets and pillow slips. You can't kill them can you? They were made to withstand the harsh laundering treatments of the day, and hot ironing, and last for generations. When they finally did give up the ghost it was usually after years of good wearing.

Remember also cotton as opposed to linen takes dye and hold it very well, and America has nots of cotton goods at good prices. Europeans stuck to linen longer because that is what was locally grown. Cotton had to be imported from the United States, India, Egypt and other places abroad. Cotton finally won out over linen in Europe because of it being easy to launder and care for.

Believe it or not, today many Europeans are very fond of poly cotton blend bed linens, and are emptying chests and closets of old pure linen items by the score. European housewives and such have had several hundred years of dealing with linen bedding,and quite frankly don't have the time and or wish to do so anymore. This is one reason one sees all those ironers and mangels on sale in various European eBay sites. Where once all house and kitchen linen was usually pure linen or linen cotton blend, that required ironing after laundering, everyone on that side of the pond is switching to easy care stuff.

L.

 

[launderess]

Oh yes,

Bed linen along with body linen was always either boiled or washed in VERY hot water. This is another reason for white bed linens.

In the days before antibiotics and good disenfectants, housewives, mothers, and everyone else was manic about germs being transferred via bed and body linen. Not to mention vermin such as lice and fleas.

There was also something seen as louche about sleeping on anything else but white bed linen. No decent woman would hang anything else on her line, well aside from red flannel bed sheets which were used as part of a sweating treatment when people were ill with certian diseases.

L.

 

[dalangdon]

Colored sheets have been around since at least the 1940's, judging from one of the essays in "Please Don't Eat The Daisies", where one of Jean Kerr's children is angry with her for not having any sheets suitable for playing a snowman who melts in a play they are doing for school (It seems she had bought all colored sheets

And Peg Bracken is a big supporter of them in "I Hate To Housekeep"

 

[whirlcool]

I became aware of solid colored sheets in the late 60's. My Mom surprised me with a set of Navy blue sheets in 1968. Before that all the sheets/pillowcases in the house were plain white.
And guess what color we use? Most of our sheets/pillowcases are white. We do have a nice set of embroidered pillowcases that we bought at JCPenny a few years ago, but those are a kind of bone color, they go nicely with the white sheets.
I guess we are just traditionalists!

 

[petek]

Most of the sheets we had growing up in the 50's and early 60's were white but we also had some printed ones as well. I think they were thicker muslin rather than the regular percale type and we'd use them in the winter. It wasn't till the mid 60's that color sheets really took off and the white ones sort of disappeared iirc. That was also around the time that mens colored underwear really took off.

 

[sudsman]

Muslin Linens

Were mostly used in the institutional fields. Hospitals and Hotel usually as they lasted longer and held up to heavy washing that was required at that time to render linens santized. It was not not unusual for wash temperatures to reach 180 which was a standard in most hospitals until the mid 60s. Things changed greatly with 50/50 polyester linens and the use of detergents instead of soap.Also at about the same time washing equiptment was changing in most larger laundries to washer/extractors instead of pullman washers and stand alone extractors.

 

[launderess]

Two Words

Pequot Muslin

Damn finest bed linens next to Cannon.

Many people get hung up on thread counts. Muslin is up to 140 threads per square inch, and percales top out at 180 normally, but today one can find higher (mainly through manipulation of threads). However good quality muslin, like Pequot will outlast all but the best percale any day of the week. Percale sheets from up until the 1950's will outlast and perform much of the designer garbarge sold today. My linen cupboards and presses are full of them and would take such things over "Gucci" and other linens any time.

One thing that did housewives in on heavy muslin sheets, is that they weren't that much easier to care for than pure linen. Heavy when wet, muslin sheets and pillow slips really should be ironed after laundering. "Rough dried", or "poverty dried" was the term applied to linens where the housewife didn't iron or have her sheets ironed (supposedly by a maid or laundress, laundry service).

Having been in nursing, and made plenty of beds in my day, can tell you what most hospitals use today in terms of bed linen is horrible IMHO. Would never pass muster back in my day, fitted sheets and all. Not one of these nurses today can make hospital corners, much less a decent bed, neither can the aides. They just chuck some sheets on the bed any which way it seems. Wouldn't happen in my day, am here to tell you.

Gone are the days when if the unit was short of linens, one would be sent downstairs and outside to the laundry (for some reason hospitals always had laundries located in outer buildings away from the main quarters. Once inside the wet, hot, damp and dank laundry, one would "request" the amount of linens required. Everything was billeted and signed for.

Hospital laundry then:

http://reflections.mndigital.org/cd...=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/hcm&CISOBOX1=laundry

 

[sudsman]

Right on Launderess

I put my foot down on fitted sheets here until about a year ago and then after a administratior told me that I was stubborn old jackass, I let them have them ccu and icu only. They are hell to process as the ironer can only iron them @ 25 fpm. (feet per min.) and we normally run @ 50 to 60. As for todays linens if that what they can be called. Most are 50/50 or 65 /35 blends. So that ironers can be operated at top speed. Forget about quality, all that counts now is how fast it can go thru the laundry and get back on the floors, and how cheap can we buy it.. W e still have some of the O R Linen that is green and muslin and looks so nice when finihsed out.. Still have 2 drs request it.. but not the normal anymore..

 

[hoovermatic]

Personally I can't abide poly cotton bedding. I know that it is easy care and all that jazz but I am strictly white egyptian cotton and always will be.

 

[iheartmaytag]

My mother said that white sheets were the public sign of a good housekeeper.

In those days you hung your sheets to dry. Many of neighbors that never set foot in your house could see from the backyard that you were an excellent housewife.

Then she started working outside the house, got an electric dryer, and clean sheets be damned.

 

[toggleswitch]

NYC garbage motto: Reduce, reuses recycle!

I don't know.

Polyester stinks against my person, and I can tell when the fabric-care and content labels are lying, er.... erroneously misplaced [i.e. say 100% cotton when the garment is clearly not].

As far as poly-blend sheets go, I buy 100% cotton only, but when family is about to throw out poly-cotton blends (that are in perfectly good shape) I've been known to adopt a set or two to avoid the landfill.

The trick (for me)in the dryer is to use low temp and not "over-cook" lest they smell awful and "burnt".

Funny how mother-Toggles' sheets lasted for decdes in her classic Maytag. Mine are fraying at a young age having been washed in a newer GE top-loader that beats them to death.

 

[danemodsandy]

The Nicest Thing...

...About white sheets is:

If something frays, rips, or wears out, it's easy to find a matching replacement- something that cannot usually be said for "designer" linens, which are generally discontinued by the manufacturer about eight-and-a-half nanoseconds after you purchase them.

Since going back to white sheets, I've been very happy that order has been restored to my linen closet. Before, it was full of mismatched, surviving pieces of "sets"- too good to throw out, but impossible to obtain matching replacements for.

 

[whirlcool]

Believe it or not we have a couple of sets of sheets that we bought around 1988 or so and still look good! We too feel that 100% cotton is the only way to go. We also dry them on low heat. They are so fluffy and clean smelling when they come out of the dryer. We have been using German Persil Sensitive on them and they smell just wonderful.
I think poly blend sheets have an odor to them. I can't describe it but those of you who have experienced them know what I mean.