Steam laundries

by Arwen Mohun

"In Steam Laundries, Arwen Mohun traces the industry's development from the first commercial laundries in the 1840s to their decline in the 1950s. That trajectory, she argues, took shape within the constraints of what was technologically possible and culturally acceptable. Rising standards of cleanliness, new kinds of machinery, and an increasingly polluted urban environment provided the context for the industry's emergence. The shortcomings of applying factory methods to washing clothes, increased regulation, and the rising costs of labor all encouraged consumers eventually to abandon laundries for newly available alternatives - electric washing machines and irons. By comparing this process in Britain and the United States, Mohun reveals differences created by culture, regulation, and social structure. She also shows the unexpected transatlantic character of this seemingly localized kind of business."--Jacket.