Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

[BaconBob]

I want to starch and iron my good white shirt. I know how to wash and stach one, but is there a method or an accurate style of ironing one?

Robert Taylor

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

Are you looking for how shirts were ironed in the 19th century or how you could iron a shirt in 2006?

[BaconBob]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

Mr. Dabney,

both, actually. Specifically, where to crease it is what I need to know as I do not want to crease in an incorrect way. Thank you for asking, sir. I would value any comments you may have.

Robert Taylor

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

I am not an expert in the art of 19th century laundry and I do hope that Virginia Mescher will be along soon but Eliza Leslie noted this about washing linen:

COLD STARCH FOR LINEN.--Take a quarter of a pint, or as much of the best raw starch as will half fill a common-sized tumbler. Fill it nearly up with very clear cold water. Mix it well with a spoon, pressing out all the lumps, till you get it thoroughly dissolved, and very smooth. Next add a tea-spoonful of salt to prevent its sticking. Then pour it into a broad earthen pan; add, gradually, a pint of clear cold water; and stir and mix it well. Do not boil it.

The shirts having been washed and dried, dip the collars and wristbands into this starch, and then squeeze them out. Between each dipping, stir it up from the bottom with a spoon. Then sprinkle the shirts, and fold or roll them up, with the collars and wristbands folded evenly inside. They will be ready to iron in an hour.

This quantity of cold starch is amply sufficient for the collars and wristbands of half a dozen shirts. Any article of cambric muslin may be done up with cold starch made as above.

Poland starch is better than any other. It is to be had at most grocery stores.

Cold starch will not do for thin muslin, or for any thing that is to be clapped and cleared. It is very convenient for linen, &c., in summer, as it requires no boiling over the fire. Also, it goes farther than boiled starch.

I found this on the Feeding American website: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/...ks/book_16.cfm

[David Swarens]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

Hello.

Potato starch is another good (period) product, which you can get from your boiled potatoes, or buy in dry powder form in Asian markets and "natural" food stores.

It is not in the laundry section of the store, but is sold as a food product.

I have had good luck making a slurry, as advised above, and then pouring boiling water into the mix, which "cooks" and clarifies the starch; this is a simplified method from period practice (late 19th century).

Using salt sounds like a safe idea! Some of the receipts I have seen call for waxes and fats(lard), which I would have reservations about adding to my linens!

The other question, on the fashion of pressing, does deserve rather more discussion, and has not been addressed in the thread.

I have assumed that sleeves did not have a crease, and were either turned or pressed on a sleeve board (unlike a modern sleeve with a crisp line from the shoulder).

Any guidance forthcoming?

Thanks!
Yours,
David Swarens

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

While I haven't done any exhaustive searching, I have done some. There just is little discussion of ironing which perhaps means that people just knew how to do it. Your mother taught you, you teach yours, they will teach theirs. Or this servant or slave told you and you will train whoever else will take it over with or after you. It's like tying your shoes. There are no books about it from 1858 and there is no "Art of Ironing." Even the well-known mavens of the world of housekeeping like Eliza Leslie and Sarah Hale made few mentions of ironing and none of it was specifically "how you should go about ironing shirts or chemise or dress." Rather they may have suggested times/days where a housekeeper or servant would have found it easier to complete the task since it was combined with all the other stuff they had to do.

I would say that pressed shirts as we imagine them probably not necessary because people wore coats or overshirts and therefore no need to crease sleeves or cuffs. Rather the seen part of the shirt, i.e., placket or pleated front and collar were probably the most ironed parts of the shirt.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Starching and ironing my boiled shirt

Here's some information on shirts from Mrs. E.F. Haskell's Housekeeper's Encyclopedia, 1861. I've omitted the parts on starching, since it's similar to many period recipes, calling for starch, wax and salt. I believe the purpose of the wax is to help give a gloss or polish to the cloth. Unfortunately this doesn't answer specifically the question about creasing sleeves.

To iron shirts well, a bosom-board is essential. [She describes how to make one, 1-1/2" thick, 1' 9" long, 18" wide, padded on one side and hard on the other.] A clean ironing sheet should be spread on the table before ironing the starched articles; iron first the neck binding, after that the back folded in the middle, then the sleeves, and remainder of he body, the collar, if on the shirt, and lastly, the bosom. If desired to have the collar and bosoms polished, turn the board, which should have been placed the soft side up, under the bosom on the hard side, pass the bosom over lightly with a damp cloth and iron it hard and quickly with a polishing iron, which differs from others by being rounded instead of flat, without an edge, and being smooth as glass, leaves no mark of the iron, as common flat-irons do... Collars, although a small article, are seldom ironed well, being easily drawn out of shape; pass the iron quickly over the wrong side of the collar, then iron the band, and lastly the front side of the collar, until it is nicely polished.

She also says, "Fold shirts, so that the bosoms will be folded in, without bending; collars should be kept in round boxes."

I saw an original shirt from the late 1860s, I think belonging to General Sherman, at the Ohio Historical Society which still had its polish on the bosom, and it was indeed different-looking, with a glossy smoothness and remains of an almost chalky-looking or dried-paste-looking white substance in the tiny crevaces around the stitching and such.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net