clothes wringer
Date: circa 1891
Inventory Number: 1996-1-0165
Classification: Clothes Wringer
Subject:
Maker: American Wringer Company (1891 - c.1950)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Dimensions:
40 × 68 × 27.5 cm (15 3/4 × 26 3/4 × 10 13/16 in.)
Description:
Clothes wringer consisting of two white, rubber rollers secured in a wooden frame. Frame consists of a stand, a ledge in front of the rollers, and wooden panels to the side and top. There is a long metal crank with a wooden handle to the left of rollers, attached by a set of metal gears. There are also gears to the right of the rollers. Metal adjustment knobs are fastened to the top of the frame and below the ledge.
In Collection(s)
Signedon front ledge: The American Wringer / New York, U. S. A.
Inscribedon front frame: NO 350 / NOVELTY / SIZE OF ROLLS 10 x 1 3/4
on back: This Wringer has warranted rubber rolls vulcanized to the shafts. Put a little oil or lard on the bearings before using and loosen top screws when the wringer is not in use. Standard High Grade Warranted. Best Quality Steel Spring. Pat'd July 6, 1880. (Also, illegible faded text.)
on back: This Wringer has warranted rubber rolls vulcanized to the shafts. Put a little oil or lard on the bearings before using and loosen top screws when the wringer is not in use. Standard High Grade Warranted. Best Quality Steel Spring. Pat'd July 6, 1880. (Also, illegible faded text.)
FunctionAs the name suggests, the clothes wringer was used to removed excess water from clothes after washing. The water was squeezed out of garments by passing them between two rubber rollers. Gears connected the rollers to a hand crank, which fed the clothing through the machine.
Such devices were very popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clothes wringers became obsolete with the rise of the electric washing machine in the 1920s.
More information about clothes wringers can be found in Lee Maxwell's Save Women's Lives: The History of the Washing Machine, available in part on the following website.
Such devices were very popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clothes wringers became obsolete with the rise of the electric washing machine in the 1920s.
More information about clothes wringers can be found in Lee Maxwell's Save Women's Lives: The History of the Washing Machine, available in part on the following website.
Curatorial RemarksOn card formerly attached to instrument and now in file: "Clothes Wringer rolls were made possible by Dr. Adams' discovery of the bonding of rubber to steel by means of copper plate. The Hood Rubber Co. was said to have paid $100 for this invention. See letter of Mrs. Walter Adams, 1957. Rcd' $100 for this from Hood Rubber Co. in 1879." [no letter from Mrs. Walter Adams has been found in the files.]