Imagine: two hundred years ago, laundry was a real pleasure. Carrying water, heating it, beating clothes, rinsing and wring… A never-ending task that can take up a whole day. Today, thanks to the magic of washing machines, this work has been shortened to an hourly cycle. But before modern appliances came along, one item in particular changed the activity in millions of households. Are you familiar with this tool?

The art of river flushing from the first innovations

The art of laundry: from rivers to the first innovations

For millennia, washing clothes involved scrubbing them by hand, often in a river or laundry. Washerwomen, armed with clubs, spent hours knocking their underwear against stones or sloping boards, which was an exhausting task. However, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, inventors began to look for solutions that could alleviate this burden.