Washboards: A Multipurpose Item

Okay, I will admit it: I like doing laundry. I guess I should specify that I like doing laundry only because I love the smell of clean laundry. In our modern times, however, laundry is certainly made easy for us. Even if we don’t have a washer and dryer in our homes there is probably a Laundromat somewhere down the street. Now, some garments may be dry-cleaning only and a few are hand-wash only but overall laundry is pretty easy: put it in the machine, add soap, press start, switch machines, and press start. I can totally handle that! Well not so long ago, these machines that make our lives so convenient did not exist and all laundry was cleaned by hand. In order to clean their clothes people in the pioneer times would probably have used a washboard to make it a little easier. We have a couple wonderful examples of washboards on display from the Virgil and Thelma Linam Collection here at the Museum.

Washboards are usually a wooden rectangular frame with some kind of ribbed surface in the middle used for rubbing/scrubbing the clothes. Clothes would be soaked in water, preferably warm or hot water, and scrubbed on the ribbed surface with or without soap. This scrubbing would serve to agitate the clothing loosening any dirt that may have been on the clothes. The clothes would then be rinsed and rung out and/or hung up to dry unless the scrubbing process needed to be repeated. The ribbed surface of the washboard was traditionally made of different kinds of metal such as brass or stainless steel, but more recently it has been made of glass as well. According to the Columbus Washboard Company’s website (www.columbuswashboard.com), they have been making washboards since 1895 and is the only manufacturer still operating in the U.S. today. Their website states that the manufacturing of washboards peaked in 1941 but, in fact, washboards are still used today to hand wash different items. Other uses for washboards according to that same website include decoration, furniture accents, as well as a musical instrument. The ribbing on the washboard surface provides a wonderful avenue for a rhythm, percussion instrument. Sometimes hung around the neck for accessibility, the washboard has been used in bluegrass, jazz, blues, country, and many other styles of music. With so many uses for the washboard it is no wonder that it has been around for such a long time. Come on in and see the wonderful examples of this multipurpose object in the South Gallery of the Western Heritage Museum Complex and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame.