Daily AncestorLaundress
A laundress, or washerwoman, washed, dried and ironed other people's clothes and linens by hand for pay.
Before washing machines, laundry was heavy work: hauling water, boiling it, scrubbing on a board, wringing, drying and ironing with heated irons. A laundress did this for families, hotels or boarders, either in her own home or in the customer's.
Many widows and poorer women, white and Black, supported families this way. The 1940 census instructions mention women who took in laundry at home as working for pay.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1870 to 1940 census
Hannah Gibbs, 40, Washerwoman, Va.
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Laundress." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/laundress. Last checked 2026-10-01.