Laowai

Here’s the chair I have – only my real chair is in storage in my mom and dad-in-law’s basement – and it looks a little more beat up than this one. 

I learned that the chair is called the Ironrite Health Chair. It was made in Detroit around 1938 and it was made to go with an ironing machine. The kind with a big roller. Like this:

Then I came across a really amusing video from 1946 that shows how to use the machine. Apparently it removes the old fashioned drudgery from the life of the woman featured in the movie. But then they show her ironing her husbands boxer shorts and sheets and frilly gathered curtains. Uhhhhg – I cannot even fathom the amount of time my grandmothers spent on housework. Did women really iron their husbands underwear?

If you want to watch the movie it’s here – it’s called Making a New Day out of Tuesday.

And now I should go because there is a big basket of laundry sitting next to me waiting to be folded.