Keeping clothes clean

As many potters know, we can have layers of clay upon our clothes and hands, which eventually crack off when they are dry, creating wonderful (cough cough) dust.

Here's my submission to Sepia Saturday this week...of a woman dealing with much more difficult circumstances.  Shelter for her family is iffy.  But to wash and dry clothes and bedding is done in the most minimal way.  This is living on a survival level.

Migrant workers camp in Weslaco, Texas, 1939, as seen on Facebook under Traces of Texas.

This is how people lived.  Not much different from migrant workers camps of today, if anyone would allow pictures to be taken of them.

And Wikipedia says this about Weslaco:

Weslaco is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas. The population was 35,670 at the 2010 United States Census. Weslaco derives its name from the W.E. Stewart Land Company.^[3] It was the hometown of Harlon Block, one of the Marines photographed raising the flag at Iwo Jima, and of film and television actor David Spielberg.

Streets north of the railroad tracks have Spanish names, and streets south of the railroad tracks bear names in English as a consequence of a 1921 municipal ordinance which declared that land north of the tracks be reserved for Hispanic residences and businesses, and land south of the tracks be reserved for Anglo residences and businesses. During World War II, sandbag production reached a peak in Weslaco, and the town declared itself the "sandbagging capital of the world."

I dare say the migrant worker family in this photo was Latino.  Many migrant workers in south Texas are Latino, as well as all across the south of the US.

When looking for this city on a google map, I finally zoomed in enough to see it is between Harlingen and McAllen, a mile or so inside the US overlooking the Rio Grande River, just south of US Hwy 2.  In case you haven't visited south Texas, the closest big city is Brownsville.  I've been through that town on my way to Mexico a few times.

Did you remember the first electric dryer you or your mother or grandmother had?  Until that time, all clothes were hung on a line to dry.  Ours was in the basement, and I've had a few in a bathroom as well...a bit slower to dry, but necessary when it's raining outside.

Just think, all those clothes that all of our ancestors wore were dried on some kind of clothes lines (or thrown across bushes!)