Laundry
The Industrial Revolution gradually led to mechanized solutions to laundry work, notably the washing machine and later the tumble dryer.
Wooden or stone scrubbing surfaces set up near a water supply were gradually replaced by portable rub boards, eventually factory-made corrugated glass or metal washboards.
The city authorities wanted to give the poorer population, who would otherwise not have access to laundry facilities, the opportunity to wash their clothes.
[5] A related implement called a washing dolly is "a wooden stick or mallet with an attached cluster of legs or pegs" that moves the cloth through the water.
Christina Hardyment, in her history from the Great Exhibition of 1851, argues that it was the development of domestic machinery that led to women's liberation.
Meanwhile, 19th-century inventors further mechanized the laundry process with various hand-operated washing machines to replace tedious hand rubbing against a washboard.
Later the mangle too was electrically powered, then replaced by a perforated double tub, which spun out the excess water in a spin cycle.
[8] The CHLA went on to function as a more general civil rights group; its numbers declined strongly after it was targeted by the FBI during the Second Red Scare (1947–1957).
"Laundering recalled the specialist craft of hide-dressing in which Zulu males engaged as izinyanga, a prestige occupation that paid handsomely."
They created a guild structure, similar to a union, to guard their conditions and wages, evolving into "one, if not indeed the most, powerful group of African work-men in nineteenth-century Natal".
Until the early 1980s, when washing machines became more affordable in the country, much of the laundry work in the Philippines was done manually, and this role was generally assigned to women.
Clothes were treated in small tubs standing in niches surrounded by low walls, known as treading or fulling stalls.
Laundry processes include washing (usually with water containing detergents or other chemicals), agitation, rinsing, drying, pressing (ironing), and folding.
Modern washing machines typically use synthetic powdered or liquid laundry detergent in place of more traditional soap.
In some parts of the world, including North America, apartment buildings and dormitories often have laundry rooms, where residents share washing machines and dryers.
Many homeowners' associations and other communities in the United States prohibit residents from using a clothesline outdoors, or limit such use to locations that are not visible from the street or to certain times of day.
Some organizations have been campaigning against legislation which has outlawed line-drying of clothing in public places, especially given the increased greenhouse gas emissions produced by some types of electrical power generation needed to power electric clothes dryers, since driers can constitute a considerable fraction of a home's total energy usage.
[citation needed] A Florida law explicitly states: "No deed restrictions, covenants, or similar binding agreements running with the land shall prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources from being installed on buildings erected on the lots or parcels covered by the deed restrictions, covenants, or binding agreements.
[citation needed] Vermont considered a "Right to Dry" bill in 1999, but it was defeated in the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee.
In 2009, clothesline legislation was debated in the states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Oregon, Virginia, and Vermont.
[citation needed] Novice users of modern laundry machines sometimes experience accidental shrinkage of garments, especially when applying heat.
Other fabrics (like cotton) have their fibers stretched by mechanical force during production, and can shrink slightly when heated (though to a lesser degree than wool).
