Washing paddle

The washing paddle is a hand tool made of wood, shaped like a baker's shovel (a peel), but with a much shorter handle used as grip, which was used in the old days for hammering the clothes to wash them, it was used to push out the dirt by hammering the clothes against the washboard, or against the existing flat slabs in the laundry.

This was usually done at home or in the public laundry. In the latter case each woman had to carry with her the washboard and the washing paddle to beat dirty clothes and lingerie to take the dirt out of them.

Women were going to the laundry with their baskets full of dirty clothes, a little bench to protect their knees and a block of homemade soap.

The paddle was used together with a washboard, made from a rectangular wooden frame with a series of reliefs or ripples, mounted inside, as a base to wash clothes (these reliefs could be wooden or metallic).

External links

• The Generation that saved America