Laundry Stories: On the Role of Evidence, Perspective and Experimentation in Writing Invisible Histories of the Home

Open lecture by social historian Danielle van den Heuvel, Professor at Utrecht University. The lecture is part of the PhD-course ’The Versatile Interior’. 

This lecture zooms in on one of the glaring absences in the histories of the premodern home: the story of laundry. 

Before the introduction of industrial washhouses and later the washing machine, laundry was part and parcel of home life for all households, rich and poor. Clothing needed cleaning, but also for example bed linens, curtains, nappies, and menstrual cloths. The sheer quantity of dirty laundry and the time and effort that went into cleaning and maintenance made that in most homes, rinsing, washing, bleaching, and drying pervaded most hours of the day, and most spaces in the home from the kitchen, to the courtyard and the attic. 

By exploring new and interdisciplinary methodologies the lecture reflects on how to get a better understanding of an everyday practice that was fundamental in shaping the early modern home.