The Clothesline
- Book Review,
by Irene Rawlings
Book Description
The Clothesline is a nostalgic yet practical guide to a less complicated time, when women shared household secrets, recipes and remedies over the back fence. Filled with historic and contemporary photographs and illustrations, the book includes tips on creating a fun yet functional laundry room, information on laundry collectibles, hints for easy care of heirloom linens, and traditional wash-day recipes like lavender ironing water and verbena soap. Visit the Clothesline website for helpful tips, excerpts from the book, and author tour information.
From the Publisher
With tips for creating a fabulous laundry room, information on laundry collectibles, hints for easy care of heirloom linens, and traditional wash-day recipes like lavender ironing water and verbena soap, The Clothesline will put a positive spin in anyone's rinse cycle.
From the Inside Flap
Remember the scent and feel of line-dried linens? They reflect a soulful task--a labor of love that connects mothers and grandmothers to the simpler times spent sharing household secrets, recipes, and remedies over the back fence. With tips for creating a fabulous laundry room, information on laundry collectibles, hints for easy car of heirloom linens, and traditional wash-day recipes like lavender ironing water and verbena soap, The Clothesline will put a positive spin in anyone's rinse cycle.
About the Author
Author Andrea VanSteenhouse is author of several books, including A Woman's Guide to a Simpler Life. She hangs an uncomplicated clothesline.
Excerpted from The Clothesline by Irene Rawlings, Andrea Vansteenhouse, David Foxhoven, Jason McConathy, Andrea Van Steenhouse. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
How it all began We finally come clean For thousands of years, people hauled their laundry to the river, pounded the clothes on rocks, and spread them out on bushes to dry. The harder they pounded, the cleaner their clothes became. Things changed dramatically with the inventions of soap sometime around 500 B.C. Some historians say the Phoenicians invented soap by accidentally mixing goat fat with ash. Others credit this miraculous invention to the ancient Egyptians who, as part of their daily wardrobe, wore cakes of perfumed tallow on their heads. So it makes sense that some of it, as it melted and dripped, would mix with the ash of banked household fires. The real question is, who thought to use this gooey mixture of fat and ash to wash clothes?
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