Ok, Guys and Gals, there is obviously a terminology divide between the UK and the USA, as well as a Time divide here. May I put in a comments from an ageing Britisher? Most of you who remember an ironing "mangle" being used by your female relatives seem to have grown-up in the USA, post WW2 - quite a long way after, at that. I'm 72 yrs old, and I grew-up in SE England during and after WW2, in a middle-class family that was fairly prosperous by English social standards of the Time. We lived in a "garden suburb" of Southend, which had been developed from Southchurch farmland . Dad and MUm had bought a newly-built, 3-bedroomed semi-detached house when they married in 1934. At that time, Dad had the second motorcar in the 750yds-long Marlborough Road. Mum had a brand-new "Frigidaire" when they moved-in to their new house in 1934, and a brand-new kitchen cooker fuelled by coalgas. Their telephone number was Southend 576 - this in a seaside holiday town of around 100,00 residents. She had an upright "Hoover" vacuum cleaner, an electric Singer sewing machine, - and was the envy of most of her female neighbours because she had these houswork aids.. But she did her washing in a galvanised tin tub, and used a dolly agitator, and a washboard; and her ironing with a series of flat-irons heated on the kitchen gas-stove. Just as her own Mum had done and still did in my Aunt's house a half-mile away. Mum got her first electric iron - from the E.K. Cole Factory out near Rochford, - when my brother was born in 1945. I well remember my "safety briefing! about that, because most of my schoolfriend's Mothers were still doing their ironing with flat-irons heated on their own kitchen stoves/cookers A nd Mum's first elecrtically-run washing machine, [an American import which cost Dad a lot of money in the Southend Gas. Light, & Coke Co,. Showrooms] - was bought for her Birthday in 1948 - and didn't have what you Americans call a wringer. She had to wait for one of those until 1953, Coronation Year. She then sold her first upright-tub washing machine "pre-owned" to a neighbour for more than Dad had paid for it 5 years earlier, because electric washing machines were still the exception rather than the Rule within our local circle of middle-class neighbours. Now I tell you all this, because most of your comments seem to relate to a rather later and more prosperous America [than post-war Britain] - where such domestic "domestic white-goods" were more readily available. The UK situation just post-War was that - for a very long time, in postWar Britain, - the Middle-Classes just could buy those US-made machines, - because US imports were heavily restricted. And what made THAT more frustrating for our family was that my Aunt mercia's husband was a typographer working for Cunard aboard the 2 "Queens" and the "Caronia" on the recently re-instated Transatlantic Services, - and would bring home every month [ amongst other things from the USA] - nylons and American cigarettes for my Aunt and his sisters-in-law, - the occasional US-made toy and Marvell Family Comic books for me; - and the latest "Saturday Evening Posts" with those wonderful Norman Rockwell Covers, - full of adverts for things to make the American Housewife's life easier - things which were simply unobtainable in Britain because private persons just couldn't obtain Import Permits. In that context, - I doubt that any Brit just post-War - outside a major UK Tourist Hotel's Laundry Room - ever saw what you call an "ironing mangle"" And a Hotel Chain would have needed to obtain a series of Import Permits from the Ministry of Supply for such things up till the late 1950's - - which they would have only gotten through being involved in the Tourist Trade which brought in much-needed Dollars from US Tourists and Service personnel.. So - in this discussion about what the word "mangle" represents, - there is a Geographic - and a Time - divide - on each side of the North Atlantic; - as well as what I suppose to be the different US experiences between those commentators from "rural" and "City" America backgrounds. Speaking from my own lifetime experiences, I'd say that very few British households - even in the relatively properous South around London - would have been able to afford an electric upright-tub-washing machine with a "wringer" mounted on the rim before the mid-1950's. And my wife and I married over 45 years ago, but it was another 5 years before I was able to give her a rotary iron - which I obtained second-hand from a Hotel which was about to be demolished. Until then, I used to insist that - as she was a Nurse working full-time on shift-duties - she was to send all of our "heavy weekly washing" out to the local Besco Laundry in St. Helier - they did a collection and delivery service, which was very popular with local households where both parents worked..
Cordially, Julian Wilson. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
