Typically, for a weekly schedule they would suggest: "If you wash on Monday, bake on Tuesday, iron Wednesday, clean Thursday, mend Friday, and bake Saturday. Or: If you have but one servant, it will be more convenient to wash Tuesday putting the clothes in to soak on monday'.
A suggested Wash Day dinner was: "Chicken Pie; Celery; Hot Baked Potatoes and Cake soaked in wine, served with Cold Custard".
Of course this meant wet floors on top of the steam billowing from the stove, which added to the fatigue and general disposition of the already overworked housewife, and most kids knew better than to try their mother's patiance on wash-day.
In 1877, some Toronto women published the 'The Home Cook Book', and suggested that the following would keep husbands happy on Wash-Day: 'Raw Oysters with Lemon and Creackers, Cold Veal with Jelly, Potato Chips, Bread and Butter, Cherry Pie with Cheese'. That would probably keep them happy everyday.
And yet the 1874, Gentleman Immigrant says this of the Canadian housewife: "If it is washing day, she helps her help in the laundry. But in well organized household, washing-day has no terrors; it is a 'heavy wash' that can-not be got through in two hours. There is no messing and slopping and soaping, and rubbing as in an English farmhouse. Of course she had lots of help: "With one of Doty's patent washing machines and wringers the linen is washed and wrung without the operator as much as wetting her fingers. It is only the ironing that is tedious, but in the woods a little ironing goes a very long way". The men must have been lining up to get them one of those good old Canadian wives.
This disillusioned view aside, laundry was something that every woman took seriously and was never an easy chore. Laundering was more than just washing. It also meant the restoring of faded dyes, setting of non-fast dyes, the removal of spots and stains and general refurbishing, so that the garment looked as good as when first made.
This from the 1849 A Treatise on Domestic Economy, may have helped: "Send a junk-bottle to the butcher, and have several gall-bladders emptied into it. Keep it salted, and in a cool place. Some persons perfume it; but fresh air removes the unpleasant smell which it gives when used for clothes". Known as beef-gall or ox-gall, when added to water was said to set colours. Undiluted it removed grease, especially from coat collars.
Hay water was used to wash and stiffen brown or buff linen; men's white gloves were washed and dried on the hands; beaver and white fur hats were cleaned with warm 'Indian meal' (corn meal) and salt; woollens were washed in very hot suds -"it is the lukewarm water that shrinks them". Stains were also removed by holding them over steaming brimstone and calico set with a spoonful of sugar of lead to a pail of water.
From the Manuscript Book, pubished in Cobourg Ontario, 1870: The Best Way to Clean a Veil: "Mix 1 Tea cup Strong Black Tea, 1 teaspoon Gin, 1 teaspoon Ammonia, dry just enough to make smooth".
From the 1838 Frugal Housewife: To Clean Silks and Ribbons "Mix half a pint of Gin, half a pound of honey, half a pound of soft soap, one eighth pint of water. Mix then lay each breadth of silk on a table and scrub well with the mixture."
White flannel was stored with lumps of wax to keep it white, and charcoal prevented stored clothes from smelling. Dry cleaning was done with grease balls made of soap, fuller's earth and ox-gall.
Cleaning hints from Valuable Secrets, published in Boston in 1798: To Remove Carriage Wheel's Grease from Clothes "Rub with butter, then with blotting paper and a hot iron or use a bit of charcoal on a silver spoon, you may then take it off as you would a drop of wax or tallow." and Against Piss Spots "Boil some chamberlye (sic) and wash the place with it. Then rinse it with clear water."
And again from Cobourg, Ontario Manuscript Book: Smell of House Drains Prevented "Any collection of filth whatever may be completely neutralized by pouring upon it a mixture of lime water and the ley of wood ashes or suds that have been used in washing. If you have a strip of land, do not throwaway suds. Both ashes and suds are good manure for bushes and young plants."
The 1849 A Treatise on Domestic Economy, gives of some idea of the enormity of the task in the mid-nineteenth century. They suggest that you would need all of the following "A plenty of soft water is a very important item. When this cannot be had, ley or soda can be put in hard water, to soften it; care being used not to put in so much, as to injure the hands and clothes. Two wash-forms are needed; one for the two tubs in which to put the suds, the other for blueing and starching- tubs. Four tubs of different sizes are necessary; also, a large wooden dipper, (as metal is apt to rust); two or three pails; a grooved wash- board; a clothes-line, (seagrass or horse-hair is best); a wash stick to move clothing when boiling, and a wooden fork to take them out, soap dishes made to hook on the tubs, saves soap and time. Provide, also a clothes-bag, an indigo-bag, of double flannel, a starch-strainer, of coarse linen; a bottle of ox-gall for calicoes; a supply of starch, neither sour nor musty; several dozens of clothes-pins, which are cleft sticks, used to fasten clothes on the line; a bottle of dissolved gum Arabic; two clothes-baskets; and a brass or copper kettle, for boiling clothes, as iron is apt to rust." Thank God for the Maytage Repairman!
