As technological advances and fashions evolved, daily domestic life evolved towards ever greater comfort. The laundry room is an example of this.
The fastidious bujada or half-yearly washing was done in lo bujadier or ceramic vat with sieved ashes to bleach the linen before it was soaped, beaten, rinsed, spun at the wash-house or in the river.
The appearance of the washing machine improved the process at the end of the 19th century, but this exclusively female task was only alleviated with the first manual washing machines at the beginning of the 20th century and then, after the Second World War, mainly electric.
Illustrations :
– Postcards with the washerwomen on the Crempse place de la République in Mussidan around 1900. Chica Collection ©Musée André Voulgre 2014.9.418
– Postcards of the washerwomen on the banks of the Isle in Montpon. (Collection Henri Brives)
– Photograph of l’Isle at the foot of the walls of Périgueux with the washerwomen and their clothes stretched out in 1899. Photo André Rigaillaud © Private collection)
– Advertisement of Laveuse France for a washing machine in 1923 in l’Agriculture nouvelle. André Voulgre Museum
– Advertisement for the Ducellier washing machine in the Petit journal agricole of 1925 ©Musée André Voulgre