Nineteenth century laundry day was a strenuous chore. Before the scrubbing or agitating of the dirty clothes began, someone hauled water to the wash boiler, heated it on a laundry stove and then added soap. As you can imagine, water and suds slopped out of the boiler creating a mess that had to be later mopped up. For this reason, many women preferred doing laundry outdoors. One woman became fed up with the mess and invented this laundry drainer.
Made of galvanized metal, this device measures 10 inches deep and 18 inches in diameter. A patent was issued Aug. 12, 1902, to Harriet Blenkhorn of Minneapolis for this invention. Harriet had trouble with the drainer toppling over and clean laundry spilling on the floor or ground. She also did not like having her feet or floor get wet while doing laundry. In the specifications of the patent, Harriet describes her drainer, “My invention relates to improvements in drainers, especially adapted for use on domestic wash boilers for the purpose of draining the clothes saturated with hot water, thus obviating the objectionable wetting of the floor.” In addition to this she provided an improved means for supporting the drainer in an inclined position on the boiler by holding it so that the drainer did not tilt backwards or sideways under the weight of the clothes.