What Laundry Day Was REALLY Like Inside a Gilded Age Mansion | History for Sleep

In 1893 a great Fifth Avenue house kept 3 women in its basement just to wash and iron its linen, and every week they turned out hundreds of pieces by hand. Monday was for the tubs, the copper boiler and a rinse of water tinted exactly sky blue. Tuesday was for sad irons weighing up to 9 pounds, heated in turns on the laundry stove. The best dinner tablecloths were so large that 4 women had to iron one at the same time. The head laundress who ran it all seldom earned more than $30 a month. So where did the clean sheets wait overnight, and why were they warm? Subscribe to the channel: @oldamericanights In this video, we talk about what laundry day was really like inside a Gilded Age mansion, including the Sunday night soaking tubs, the servants' beds stripped at six, the linen books and the lady's maid's two lists, mending and stain remedies at the sorting table, the laundry fire and melted soap, two waters and the copper boiler, the sky blue bluing rinse, flannels and blankets washed in water of one warmth, silk and lace curtains handled by hand, the starch recipe, the wringer and the drying yard, the steam heated drying racks, the cost of sending linen out to a steam laundry, the ironing fire and the sad irons, four women ironing one damask tablecloth, fluting scissors and the smallest irons, the airing frame, the linen room and its colored ribbons, and the whole house asleep in clean sheets. 🔔 Subscribe so the next long Gilded Age night finds you without any searching. 💬 Comment where in the world you are listening from, and which part of the Bexleys' wash day you would have liked to watch. 📢 Share this with anyone who loves falling asleep to history, on Facebook, Reddit, or a quiet group chat, because you are the reason these long nights keep getting made. Chapters: 00:00 Opening 15:14 The great beds are stripped 35:09 The laundry fire and the soap 55:30 Flannels, blankets, the same warm water 1:15:51 The wringer and the drying yard 1:36:37 Tuesday, the ironing fire is made 1:57:31 Everything hangs on the airing frame 2:18:44 The beds are made again 2:38:55 The whole house asleep in clean linen Sources: Maria Parloa, Miss Parloa's Young Housekeeper (1893) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56540 Maria Parloa, Home Economics (1898) https://archive.org/details/homeecono... Mary Elizabeth Carter, Millionaire Households and Their Domestic Economy (1903) https://archive.org/details/millionai... National Park Service, The Vanderbilt Laundry Rooms https://www.nps.gov/vama/blogs/the-va... Biltmore, Biltmore House domestic staff https://www.biltmore.com/our-story/bi... Lucy Maynard Salmon, Domestic Service (1897) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73921 Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalogue No. 104, Spring 1897 https://archive.org/details/sears-roe... DISCLAIMER: This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional. #OldAmericaNights #GildedAge #HistoryForSleep #SleepHistory #GildedAgeNewYork #FifthAvenue #OldNewYork #NewYorkHistory #LaundryDay #WashDay #Laundress #Servants #DownstairsHistory #1890s #NineteenthCentury #AmericanHistory #SocialHistory #BedtimeHistory #SleepStory #RelaxingHistory #VanderbiltMansion