Sort the clothes first by color, fabric and degree of soil…soak them overnight in separate tubs of warm water; with few soaps or washing fluids, overnight soaking saved ‘considerable labor.” The next morning, drain off that water and pour hot suds on the finest clothes…  Wash them out, rub soap on the most soiled spots, then cover them with water in the boiler on the stove and ‘boil them up’…moving them about, with the wash-stick, to  keep them from getting yellow in spots’…Take them out of the boiler, rub dirty spots again, rinse in plain water, wring out, rinse again in water with bluing, wring very dry, dip the articles to be stiffened in starch, and wring out once more.  Hang clothes on the line until perfectly dry. And while that load is on the line…repeat the entire process on progressively coarser and dirtier loads of clothes.

Why would a woman want to leave the comforts of her home and become a laundress or washerwoman on the frontier?  She would come out to be with her husband who was in the military.  She was also paid well for that period, i.e. 50 cents per month per soldier and up to $4.00 per month for the officers as compared to the soldier's wages $10-$13 per month.  She would do laundry for 19-20 men.   Not only did she scrub and iron the soldier’s clothes, but she could supplement her income by mending and cooking.

The laundry set-up for a frontier washerwoman.

Here is a list of the equipment and supplies a laundress would need for her work:

1.     Two wooden washtubs

2.     Two wooden buckets and a yoke to haul water in

3.     A wooden washboard

4.     Camp kettle to boil the clothes in

5.     A stick to stir the boiling laundry

6.     Lye soap, starch and bluing

7.     Dirty clothes

8.     Clothes line and clothes pins

9.     Iron and Ironing board