"To keep your wringer operating properly, dry rolls thoroughly after use with a soft cloth and then release lever which removes pressure from the rolls." View full size. Photograph by Ann Rosener for the Office of Emergency Management.
To the anonymous tipster who lamented not being able to find a wringer washer - Psst! Over here.
Apparently, wringer washers are still in regular use in the deserts of the Middle East (hence this one being manufactured in Saudi Arabia) because they use less water than a conventional machine.
Do what the guy in that YouTube clip did. We had a wringer washer when I was a kid and I never saw anyone - including me as a little kid - make such a hash out of putting a simple shirt through the wringer.
The thing that used to amaze me about the wringer was the little trough that directed the wrung out water back into the washing drum. You could adjust the position of the wringer (for lefties I suppose) and the trough was balanced on a pivot like a teeter totter. If you pushed up on it you could make it dump the water over the side but if you let it go it would always go back to where it was supposed to be
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Fri, 06/13/2008 - 12:34pm.
I grew up with a wringer washer just like this and we felt fortunate we weren't doing laundry by hand! It was definitely worth the air-dried smell of sheets on one's bed - something I still miss. And after washday came ironing day -- a lot more tedious. Everything is relative, even the definition of labor.
Submitted by Anonymous Tipster on Thu, 06/12/2008 - 10:56pm.
I remember well that our Chicago brownstone apartment had one of those machines in the basement. While we'd take laundry to the laundromat, she would now and then go downstairs and use this monster. Perhaps when cash was running low...it was hard work.
I can clearly remember her warning me to keep my hands away from those rollers, though.
We women have NO IDEA how hard it all used to be...
