Laundry Day.

The average American farm wife's week began with "Blue Monday," the traditional laundry day in most regions. She began her day by hauling many buckets of water from the outdoor pump or well into the kitchen. Next, she had to start a fire in the stove and boil the water in large pots. It took about fifty gallons of water (weighing four hundred pounds) for one load. Sheets and underwear had to be "cooked" and scrubbed with rough lye-based soaps until they came clean. Then came rinsing, bluing (adding a faint blue dye to the rinse water to make the linens look whiter), starching, wringing water out of the heavy wet laundry, and finally spreading linens on the grass so that the sun could bleach them or hanging them on the clothesline with the rest of the wet laundry. Repeating this process several...