The washboard was a common household tool for hand washing clothes before modern washing machines. It had a wooden frame with a metal ridged section and was used in a bathtub filled with warm soapy water. After the advent of washing machines, it became less popular but is now used as a decorative accent and musical instrument.
The washboard is a device originally designed to aid in the hand washing process of clothes. In the days before modern washing machines, many homes kept different sized washboards in the house, making it the ideal cleaning tool for large and small items of clothing, bed linens, and other home textiles. Along with a galvanized washboard, no 19th-century home was considered complete without at least one washboard.
Designed as a simple fixture, the typical washhouse was constructed with a rectangular shaped wooden frame. The frame housed a section of metal which featured a series of ridges running the length of the metal plate. Included in the wooden frame were two short legs. While some designs of the washboard also used hardwoods for the ridged section of the washboard, these had all but disappeared by the end of the 19th century. Zinc was the metal of choice for most washboards from the 19th century onwards, with galvanized steel eventually replacing the zinc inserts.
Using a washboard required placing the legs of the device inside a bathtub filled with warm soapy water. With the legs resting in the tub, the washboard was placed against the chest area for stability. The clothes would be soaked in water, then rubbed vigorously across the ridges of the board. Following this process would help remove a number of stubborn stains from clothing. Once the laundry job was done, the washing board could be placed outside in the sun or hung on a rack to dry. With minimal care, a good quality washboard would last for years.
After the advent of the washing machine, the use of the washboard as a household appliance began to fall out of favor. Over time, decorative washboard designs have become commonplace in some homes. Panels that feature tempered glass or brass for the rippled component are very common today. In addition to use as a decorative accent, several musical genres use the washboard as a musical instrument. Musical washboard is often employed with country and western, bluegrass and folk music.
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