in
Palojoki,
Nurmijärvi,
Finland, pictured in 2005
Clothes press , 1962. washing machine with a built-in wringer The
Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the word
mangle in English from 1598, quoting
John Florio who, in his 1598 dictionary,
A World of Words, described "a kind of press to press
buckram,
fustian, or dyed linen cloth, to make it have a luster or gloss". The word comes from the Dutch , from "to mangle", which in turn derives from the medieval Latin or which ultimately comes from the Greek
manganon, meaning "axis" or "engine" (particularly the
mangonel). Some northern European countries used a table version for centuries, the device consisting of the rolling pin, a wood cylinder around which the damp cloth was wrapped, and the mangle board, a curved or flat length of wood which was used to roll and flatten the cloth. The oldest known model is a Norwegian mangle board, found near
Bergen and dated 1444. In the second half of the 19th century, commercial laundries began using steam-powered mangles or ironers. Gradually, the electric washing machine's spin cycle rendered this use of a mangle obsolete, and with it the need to wring out water from clothes mechanically.
Box mangles were large and primarily intended for pressing laundry smooth; they were used by wealthy households, large commercial laundries, and self-employed "mangle women". Middle-class households and independent washerwomen used upright mangles for wringing water out of laundry, and in the later 19th century they were more widely used than early washing machines. The rollers were typically made of wood, or sometimes
rubber. The Steel Roll Mangle Co. of 108 Franklin Street, Chicago, Illinois, offered a gas-heated home mangle for pressing linens in 1902. In the 1930s electric mangles were developed and are still a feature of many laundry rooms. They consist of a rotating padded drum which revolves against a
heating element which can be stationary, or can also be a rotating drum. Laundry is fed into the turning mangle and emerges flat and pressed on the other side. This process takes much less time than
ironing with the usual
iron and ironing board. There were many electric rotary ironers on the American market including Solent, Thor, Ironrite and Apex. By the 1940s the list had grown to include Bendix, General Electric, Kenmore and Maytag. By the 1950s, home ironers, or mangles, as they came to be called, were becoming popular time-savers for the homemaker.
Drying clothes in the UK When home
washing machines were first invented, they were just for washing: a tub on legs or wheels. A hand-cranked mangle appeared on top after 1843 when John E. Turnbull of
Saint John, New Brunswick, patented a "Clothes Washer With Wringer Rolls". The first geared wringer mangle in the UK is thought to date to about 1850, when one was invented by Robert Tasker of
Lancashire. It was a smaller, upright version of the
box mangle. == Current use ==