Washboards at the riverside

Board, box, and bench in France and southern Europe      >> also Wash-houses

Washerwomen at the riverside were a common subject for 19th century French artists. Some of their work shows not only the French version of a washboard, but the three-sided box or caisse that went with it. The woman knelt in the box and her skirt stayed dry. For more comfort, she could pad it with straw to cushion her knees.

When Americans think of their great-grandmothers using a traditional washboard, or British people recall old washing dollies, French memories are more likely to be of a box and board. (These were also known in Spain.) In France living history events or re-creations of traditional ways of life may feature women in 19th century costume using the box and board, in the many regions where this was common.

The riverside washerwomen had sometimes soaked their laundry in lye before taking it to the water's edge, as described in Zola's Dream, quoted on the page about the "great wash". The rather snooty-sounding English travel writers (see left-hand column) offer a picture of the women and their equipment but no real information on washing techniques.

In some areas benches with legs were more popular than a plain board. They could be used upside down as in the Gauguin painting (right) - or looking more like ironing boards at the edge of the water. Sometimes the women got into tubs or barrels rather than boxes, as in this picture from Switzerland.

This website has another article discussing the origins of washboards, suggesting that there is no clear evidence of boards in use before the 19th century, except in Scandinavia. None of the pictures on this page, or linked to, show anything earlier. The boards and benches are all 19th century. The washing bat or battoir in the first two pictures was a very familiar traditional tool, used with or without other equipment.

Wash-houses

Women could work together by the river, or in the other communal laundry places: the public wash-houses. These were usually open-air, though often roofed, in France (lavoirs) and southern Europe. Some were based on a simple village fountain spilling over into a basin, while others were large purpose-built facilities. In some regions there was a special version, a laundry-boat moored on the riverbank, a bateau-lavoir, giving easy access to river-water.

The Italian wash-house illustrated (right) also has a barrel and tub for soaking in water and ashes (lye). Note the plug-holes to let the liquid run out for re-heating as described on this page about lye. There is also a detailed description (in Italian) of traditional laundry techniques in 19th century Rome.

At one of the public fountains I counted fifteen washerwomen in a row, with benches upon which they rub the clothes, and pound them with wooden bats.
[Travelling through Le Havre, France, in 1829], Rembrandt Peale, Notes on Italy, 1831

Some wash-houses were built with sloping sides to the water-basin. Even when they were flat, the surrounds could be used exactly like any washboard, as a surface for rubbing or brushing soap into soiled cloth. There are still lots of open-air wash-houses to be seen in the warmer parts of Europe, but they are not used, unless one individual decides to continue the habits of a long life.

The wash-house tradition is still alive in Guatemala - as  illustrated below.

See also: a French government collection of photographs of washerwomen (lavandières), old French washing pictures, and photographs of boards and a laundry boat.

23 January 2008

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