MUSINGS ON MANGLES AND HARD TIMES

MAGIC STEAM LAUNDRY, CLOVIS, 1938
   I SAW MY FIRST MANGLE
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New modern-day mangles are pretty-colored 
and cute. Many are now electric.

An old, heavy, one-and-a-half ton iron steam 
mangle of the early twentieth century had all
of the beauty of a ditch that needed to be dug,
a cotton field that needed to be hoed, or a rail-
road track that needed to be laid down. 

In those days, mangles were heated with steam--
hot steam--they were drab, unattractive machines,
and in un-airconditioned buildings, where working
temps might reach 100 plus. 

Those were hard times.

A "mangle" is an ironing machine for sheets, pillow
cases, tablecloths, kitchen towels and any flat work.
It is often also-called a "flat-work ironer." It is seven
or eight feet wide to accommodate large pieces of
laundry.

The first one I ever saw was when we assumed 
ownership of the Magic Steam Laundry, 417 W. 
Grand, Clovis, N.M., in July of 1938. I was four-
and-a-half. Dad took me over by the big old ugly,
rusty-looking mangle near the double doors to the
alley and said: "See those two pipes along the
floor by the door? They are steam pipes running 
to this machine (the mangle). Don't step on them 
bare-footed."

It was summertime and little boys went barefooted,
and the next morning. I walked  over to those
pipes, and stepped right on them, testing them. 
He was right! My little feet had big clear blisters for 
a week.

The machine had five or six giant chrome rollers,
all filled with steam. They turned with a single taut 
canvas running around each one. A sheet, for 
example, was fed into the mangle from the back 
side, followed the canvas around the hot rolling 
drums, and was perfectly ironed when it came out 
the front side.

Two operators fed the sheets, or other items, into
the machine, and two operators on the other side 
folded the items. A hospital or motel client might 
have several stacks of beautifully ironed and folded 
sheets, waiting to be wrapped in brown laundry paper.

These sheets, pillow cases, or whatever, had been
washed in the hottest water, bleached, rinsed 
several times, and when ironed gave off an
unbelievably nice "ironed clothes" smell which
permeated the whole laundry, long after the
day's run was finished.

Times were hard in the late thirties and early forties.
Times might be described like the old mangle---
"rough, tough, and rusty..." The Great Depression
was still on and WWII was just beginning---men's 
minds and souls were weighed down with just getting
by.

Wages and hourly pay were infintesimal as compared
to today. True, a dollar was a dollar then, and a loaf
of bread was likely about twelve cents.

Laundry workers were always women needing jobs
and a "fair" hourly wage in the late thirties was 16-20
cents an hour for mangle operators, though pressers
and shirt finishers made more. Since a day's work
was five or six hours, a week's pay for six days
might not be more than ten dollars.

Contrast this economic situation in the good old
USA then,  to today. Due to the "minimum wage," 
A worker today could make ten or eleven dollars 
in one hour, rather than a whole week.

Our laundry delivery van operator, a man with a 
family, made thirty-eight dollars a week in the
late thirties and supported a family on that.

Even yard-men and swimming pool cleaners now
charge $60-70 per hour.

My ex-yard man wanted $100 for what I thought was
two hour's work. He reluctantly came down to $90
for the job. An hour-and-a-half later he was through.
Ergo: yard work---$60 an hour.

WWII was on in all its fury in December of 1944.
Ms. E. who had a son in the army was the front-
left folder at the mangle. A loved one came into
the laundry, walked down the aisle to her,
handed her a telegram, spoke into her ear over 
the din of the noisy machines. She collapsed.

Her son, fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, had 
been wounded...a head wound. The laundry
came totally to a halt...Ms. E. was laid out on a
table...wet cloths and smelling salts were 
administered. She recovered and her son 
eventually came home with a steel plate in his 
head. Just one example, out of thousands, of
the costs of that war.

And a slice of Americana in days long gone
by. 

Old timers sort of feel that younger
Americans should be reminded of a time
when families didn't spend $60 to eat out,
they couldn't afford a home phone at $6.00
a month, kids didn't have cars, phones, iPads;
they didn't text, tweet, phone, twitter, and
have their noses buried in electronic gadgets.
Birthday parties cost $1.50 rather than $500.

We all need to be reminded that there was a
time, 75 years ago in the USA, when women
stood at hot mangles, and tried to eke out
a living @ 20 cents an hour.

What has happened to America? You tell me.

*******30*****
BY MIL
10/08/14













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