{"id":511,"date":"2013-11-21T12:48:14","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T18:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/?page_id=511"},"modified":"2013-11-21T12:48:14","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T18:48:14","slug":"tidbit-it-all-comes-out-in-the-wash","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/tidbit-it-all-comes-out-in-the-wash\/","title":{"rendered":"Tidbit: It All Comes out in the Wash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently on the\u00a0Today Show<\/em>, a family was asked to give up their modern conveniences for one week. The mother of 4 children said going without a washer and a dryer was the most difficult.<\/p>\n

The mother’s comments started me thinking about washday blues over the years on the Hill. Imagine instead of 4 children, a student body in the hundreds with few services provided on site in the college’s earlier years.<\/p>\n

In the 1890s, Prof. Halvor Ytterboe cautioned students in his talk on etiquette and behavior, by stating:<\/p>\n

Do not wear collars and shirts so dirty that one is tempted to plant and raise a crop of potatoes or take a homestead on.<\/p>\n

Be sure to pay your wash bills. One of the cheapest and smallest and meanest things I know of is for one to run away from his wash bills. A poor washerwoman!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By 1914, it appeared students faced laundry hardship. In a letter to his parents, Adolph Ensrud ’17 wrote:<\/p>\n

I think I will send a bundle of laundry home this week. They wash so poor here that they ruin everything. Over half the students send their laundry home. When I worked in the post office we handled 30 to 50 pieces a day and the most of it was laundry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The practice of sending laundry home gained such momentum that by 1929\u00a0The Messenger<\/em>noted that most “every student at St. Olaf and Carleton knows that a laundry case will carry his laundry home and back again, with perhaps a bit of goodies to eat on the return journey.”\u00a0The Mess<\/em>\u00a0also noted that on average, the Northfield post office handled 575 packages a week. Of these, 300 to 400 were laundry cases. Northfield laundry services feeling the pinch, hired students to act as agents and manage a campus laundry service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Fellows doing laundry (Viking 1948 annual): Charles Henderson, George Bye, Lionel Simonson, Bill Brustad<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In the midst of a coal strike in 1946, a freight embargo edict caused much consternation with students: laundry cases could not weigh more than 5 pounds. Students found this a hardship as they were used to stuffing their cases to capacity, averaging 15 pounds.<\/p>\n

The practice of sending laundry cases home dissipated in the late 1950s when new dormitories were constructed, equipped with “modern” washers and dryers. Joanne Tapper ’59, complained in\u00a0The Mess<\/em>\u00a0that the East Hall (later renamed Flaten Hall) washer and dryer worked together\u2014”one rips, the other burns.” Tapper also cited that the washer was obsessed with cleanliness with a “driving compulsion to have the floor scrubbed, flips a gismo deep within its innards, and covers the hallway with water and soapsuds.”<\/p>\n

A few years later, women from Hilleboe-Kittelsby protested the cost of dorm laundry facilities by washing their clothing at Heath Creek.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The mother of the family on the\u00a0Today Show<\/em>\u00a0didn’t have to wash clothes in the creek, however she came close\u2014doing 16 loads of laundry in the bathtub.\u00a0Perhaps she needed an Ole laundry agent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently on the\u00a0Today Show, a family was asked to give up their modern conveniences for one week. The mother of 4 children said going without a washer and a dryer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-511","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}