Only One Factory in North America Still Makes Washboards, and They Are Flying Off of Shelves [View all]

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For the uninitiated, washboards are used to clean laundry, and typically have a wooden frame surrounding a rippled metal surface. You soak clothes in soapy water, then rub them against the metal surface to scrub the fabric. Washboards are antiquated, but one last remaining factory produces them in North America. In Logan, Ohio, the Columbus Washboard Company still sells about 80,000 washboards per year. Co-owner and factory manager James Martin estimates that 40 percent of the company's sales are to people using them to wash clothes or keeping them for a prepper stash, 20 percent are sold for decoration and 40 percent are sold for use as musical instruments. Washboards are considered percussion instruments, with players using any available tools to make noise on the rubbing surface.

“We’ve had at least a double increase in sales from Covid,” says co-owner Jacqui Barnett. “We’re selling to a lot of individuals that live in apartment buildings, so they can do their own laundry in their own sink instead of having to face going to a laundromat right now.” The company really only knows how washboards are being used if customers tell them, but Barnett and Martin are able to determine the most likely use based on the shipping addresses—many of which are now apartment buildings in larger cities. It's especially telling considering they haven't changed up marketing at all during the pandemic; the company still relies on its website and advertising in local tourism magazines.

In Kidron, Ohio, Lehman’s Hardware Store, which focuses on selling non-electric products, has seen a similar boost in washboard sales. “For the main galvanized washboard, we have seen, from February 19 to October 20, a 500 percent increase, and the three other washboards have at least doubled,” says Glenda Ervin, sales manager and daughter of the store’s founder. Typically, Lehman’s sells to homesteaders—but Ervin notes that the sales increases across their products are from people who are new to that lifestyle. “It’s all about people being concerned that the way they do things isn’t going to work anymore,” says Ervin. “So people look to the past to secure their future. My great-grandma probably did all her laundry in a tub with a washboard, but that’s not something I would do unless I was worried I wouldn’t be able to use my washer and dryer anymore.”

No one really knows when washboards started to be used, but the first known patent was awarded in 1797. From there, they continued to gain popularity as the best way to wash clothes—until the washing machine was invented in the early 1900s, anthropologist Cassie Green noted in her 2016 thesis, "Agitated to Clean: How the Washing Machine Changed Life for the American Woman." As the technology improved, washboards were used less frequently, slowly fading almost out of existence after the 1950s.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/only-one-factory-north-america-still-makes-washboards-they-are-flying-off-shelves-180976194/