Julian,
That's a really interesting description, and it does make sense why the
ironing mangle is less familiar on this side of the "pond". It reminds
me of my mother telling me why their house (built 1930s) had a
stone-floored pantry, and they saved up to get a fridge a year or two
after they moved there in the early 1960s - a fridge was still not
regarded as absolutely essential, it was something you got once other
things were settled. Strangely, since she was a needlework teacher,
I've never heard anything about the laundry arrangements. Although we
still had a twin-tub, possibly even until I left home - I don't remember
learning how to work a front-loader at home until after I had used the
launderette for a while at college.
Jean
julian wilson wrote:
Ok, Guys and Gals,
there is obviously a terminology divide between the UK and the USA, as well as
a Time divide here.
May I put in a comments from an ageing Britisher?
Most of you who remember an ironing "mangle" being used by your female relatives seem to have grown-up in the USA, post WW2 - quite a long way after, at that.
I'm 72 yrs old, and I grew-up in SE England during and after WW2, in a middle-class family that was fairly prosperous by English social standards of the Time. We lived in a "garden suburb" of Southend, which had been developed from Southchurch farmland . Dad and MUm had bought a newly-built, 3-bedroomed semi-detached house when they married in 1934.
At that time, Dad had the second motorcar in the 750yds-long Marlborough Road.
Mum had a brand-new "Frigidaire" when they moved-in to their new house in 1934, and a brand-new kitchen cooker fuelled by coalgas.
Their telephone number was Southend 576 - this in a seaside holiday town of around 100,00 residents.
She had an upright "Hoover" vacuum cleaner, an electric Singer sewing machine, - and was the envy of most of her female neighbours because she had these houswork aids..
But she did her washing in a galvanised tin tub, and used a dolly agitator, and
a washboard; and her ironing with a series of flat-irons heated on the kitchen
gas-stove. Just as her own Mum had done and still did in my Aunt's house a
half-mile away.
Mum got her first electric iron - from the E.K. Cole Factory out near Rochford, -
when my brother was born in 1945. I well remember my "safety briefing! about
that, because most of my schoolfriend's Mothers were still doing their ironing with
flat-irons heated on their own kitchen stoves/cookers
A nd Mum's first elecrtically-run washing machine, [an American import which cost Dad a lot
of money in the Southend Gas. Light, & Coke Co,. Showrooms] - was bought for her Birthday
in 1948 - and didn't have what you Americans call a wringer. She had to wait for one of those
until 1953, Coronation Year. She then sold her first upright-tub washing machine
"pre-owned" to a neighbour for more than Dad had paid for it 5 years earlier,
because electric washing machines were still the exception rather than the Rule within our
local circle of middle-class neighbours.
Now I tell you all this, because most of your comments seem to relate to a rather later and more prosperous America [than post-war Britain] - where such domestic "domestic white-goods" were more readily available.
The UK situation just post-War was that - for a very long time, in postWar Britain, - the Middle-Classes just could buy those US-made machines, - because US imports were heavily restricted. And what made THAT more frustrating for our family was that my Aunt mercia's husband was a typographer working for Cunard aboard the 2 "Queens" and the "Caronia" on the recently re-instated Transatlantic Services, - and would bring home every month [ amongst other things from the USA] - nylons and American cigarettes for my Aunt and his sisters-in-law, - the occasional US-made toy and Marvell Family Comic books for me; - and the latest "Saturday Evening Posts" with those wonderful Norman Rockwell Covers, - full of adverts for things to make the American Housewife's life easier - things which were simply unobtainable in Britain because private persons just couldn't obtain Import Permits.
In that context, - I doubt that any Brit just post-War - outside a major UK Tourist Hotel's
Laundry Room - ever saw what you call an "ironing mangle"" And a Hotel Chain
would have needed to obtain a series of Import Permits from the Ministry of Supply for such
things up till the late 1950's - - which they would have only gotten through being involved
in the Tourist Trade which brought in much-needed Dollars from US Tourists and Service
personnel..
So - in this discussion about what the word "mangle" represents, - there is a Geographic - and a
Time - divide - on each side of the North Atlantic; - as well as what I suppose to be the different US
experiences between those commentators from "rural" and "City" America backgrounds.
Speaking from my own lifetime experiences, I'd say that very few British households -
even in the relatively properous South around London - would have been able to afford an
electric upright-tub-washing machine with a "wringer" mounted on the rim before
the mid-1950's.
And my wife and I married over 45 years ago, but it was another 5 years before I was
able to give her a rotary iron - which I obtained second-hand from a Hotel which was
about to be demolished. Until then, I used to insist that - as she was a Nurse working
full-time on shift-duties - she was to send all of our "heavy weekly washing"
out to the local Besco Laundry in St. Helier - they did a collection and delivery
service, which was very popular with local households where both parents worked..
Cordially,
Julian Wilson.
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