Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1940 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) [Paperback]

Arwen P. Mohun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 17, 2002 | Series: Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology (Book 25)

Laundries were once ubiquitous in British and American cities—products of the same historical process that created steel mills and railroads. Unlike the more familiar examples of industrialization, these cleanliness factories remained powerfully identified with domesticity. In Steam Laundries, Arwen Mohun explores broader issues of how gender has shaped how everyday work gets done, who does the work, and how the work is valued. The British-American comparison further reveals differences owing to culture, regulation, and social structure as well as the unexpected transatlantic character of this seemingly localized business.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Steam Laundries explores the permeable boundaries between technology and culture, home and work, and service and industry to develop an alternative perspective on the process of industrialization. Mohun's scholarship not only succeeds but also compels us to consider what lessons might be learned from other neglected industries.

(Nancy Page Fernandez Journal of American History )

Steam Laundries is an important contribution to our understanding of the gendered history of technology in Britain and the United States.

(Jay Kleinberg Times Literary Supplement )

Arwen Mohun has written a fascinating account of the rise, growth, and decline of a little-noticed industry... This is a significant book that advances scholarship on the relationship of technology, gender, and culture.

(Patricia Malcolmson Technology and Culture )

Steam Laundries represents a new generation of history of technology scholarship.

(Betsy Hunter Bradley Public Historian )

Mohun's book is not only a useful contribution to the revision of past histories, but a source of intellectual imagination for contemporary struggles as well.

(Jenrose Fitzgerald Journal of Women's History )

About the Author

Arwen P. Mohun is an associate professor of history at the University of Delaware.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (December 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801872464
• ISBN-13: 978-0801872464
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,693,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive women's history in a little-known field, July 24, 2009

By 

Cynthia Rose (London England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Great Britain, 1880--1940 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) (Hardcover)

This is a delightful and readable work of primary-source research on a topic that has essentially never been written up. As someone who found it when (successfully) landmarking a steam laundry in Seattle, it was useful as well as fascinating. Although it covers the East Coast and midWest and contrasts them to England, it is extremely well-researched and detailed. The role of gender in this now-forgotten industry was a lynchpin of its success and this is very well analysed in a vivid style. At the time, the industry was distinguished by both its quirks and its social isolation (which applied equally to its workers and its magnates). But these also made it a métier in which both those with little resources or those new to a community could triumph. One of the foremost local industries of its time, the steam or power laundry is now almost forgotten and, as I can personally testify, its fascinating history is not one valued by the mainstream of "preservationists". For labour historians, women's historians, and anyone interested in the historical side of women's studies, however, it is a must-read. Hopefully some day, it will be followed by a proper history of "Chinese" and "Oriental" laundries on the West Coast of the US. Cynthia Rose