Laundresses at Fort Laramie

A washerwoman and her family pose for the cameras while camped with the Union Army of the Potomac, during the Civil War. Laundresses at Fort Laramie would have looked similar. Few personal documents, such as photos or diaries, exist of 19th-century laundresses.

FOLA Archives

Having laundresses do military washing was a British tradition that originated from Napoleon and was carried over to the West. Laundresses were first legally recognized by the U.S. on March 16, 1802, making them the only women on the post recognized by the government. Laundresses came from all walks of life, with many being immigrants. To gain employment, the ladies would have to go to the Commanding Officer to request permission to work. Once they were permitted to work, they would receive a 5-year contract but were allowed to leave if they deemed their life unsatisfying, a choice soldiers were not given. As government employees, they would receive housing colloquially referred to as “Soapsud’s Row” or “Sudsville”. At Fort Laramie, their housing was on the edge of the Laramie River, consisting of wood shacks and canvas tents reinforced with barrel staves, until 1875, when they were permitted to move just across the Laramie and into an abandoned cavalry barrack. They would also be given straw bedding, wood fuel, food, and whiskey rations. A laundress would make $19.5 a month for the 19.5 men they would wash for. This was decent money for the time, as privates only made $13 a month, and $1 would go directly to their laundress.

Laundresses also did extra work around the post for more coins, including washing for civilians, mending, baking and selling pies, occasionally working as house servants for officers’ wives, and assisting as midwives. They typically did all their washing on Mondays, as Sunday was when people changed their clothes, and ironed on Tuesdays. Washing was a long, arduous task, as they were washing for around twenty people including themselves, plus their family and any civilians they've taken on. It was a task no one envied, and left every lady with tough, reddened hands and a sore back. Beginning in the morning, the “spikes”, a colloquial term for the laundresses, would line up at a pump, or at Fort Laramie, the Laramie River, to gather water. Washing was a multi-step process, so one needed water for the first boiling rinse tub, the washtub to scrub, and a final rinse tub. They would also rinse with a blue solution if necessary, and after wringing out the clothing, starch thicker garments for stiffness, then hang them to dry. Laundresses would also make their own soap, harvesting lye from wood ashes and mixing it with lard.

Although a laundress’s life was busy and full of hard work, she was still one of the few women at the post and making a good wage too. As such, laundresses were never single long, no matter how comely. Often enlisted men would seek out the spikes, and a few would be lucky enough to catch a corporal or sergeant's eye. The ladies were guests at enlisted dances and hops, and they bashfully hid their sun-reddened hands in the folds of their skirts. If a soldier and laundress decided to marry, they would have to receive permission from the Commanding Officer first. As a married couple, they would get certain benefits: the soldier could sleep at the laundress’s housing instead of the crowded barracks and eat there as well, instead of the mess hall with rotating untrained cooks. This allowed the soldiers to be home and help care for children and other household duties.

Despite the immense amount of work these ladies did for the forts and the morale boost they brought, some felt that they were an economic drag. To move laundresses from post to post often cost more than an entire company of men. As the close of the century approached, the wild West settled down; new innovations were on the horizon, and the military decided that the laundresses were no longer necessary. On April 10, 1883, general orders stated that the laundresses’ rations be revoked as of June 18, 1883, and their legal recognition with it.