What is the history of dry cleaning?
We are all so dependent on it yet know very little about it. Dry cleaning, which might be called by many names around the world, is an important kind of cleaning that has been around since the Roman Empire. Although the techniques have changed quite a bit over the past few years, a lot of things are still essentially the same, including its application and usage. The history is quite a colorful one, with early dependency on animal urine to now using chemical compounds like tetracholoroethylene. Here are some excerpts that look into the developments of this unique technique to wash clothes.
As mentioned earlier, the first evidence of dry cleaning appears to have emerged in the Roman Empire. Here, the ancient Romans were dependent on ammonia derived from urine in order to wash their woolen togas. Ammonia in conjunction with fuller’s earth was put for this purpose which helped in removing tough and difficult stains from the clothes. Fullionicae, as these people were called, were an important part of the society and typically, the largest employer of each district. Their importance was so high that they were actually one of the more powerful people of the constituency, often being involved with political decisions.
The first kind of dry cleaning as such in the modern world was discovered by accident by a French dye works owner, Jean Baptiste Jolly. Jean observed that his tablecloth ended up becoming cleaner when one of the maids accidently spilled kerosene on it. This evolved into a service that allowed patrons to bring in their clothes to be “dry cleaned” by kerosene. Eventually, most dry cleaners used petroleum based solvents like gasoline and kerosene. Since these were extremely flammable, a slightly less flammable compound, Stoddard solvent, was invented and promoted.
Gradually, this compound was replaced by tetracholorethylene or perc (short for perchloroethylene) which was non flammable and much more powerful than some of the other compounds used up until then. But, classification and subsequent withdrawal of the carcinogen tag caused confusion and ended up with the dry cleaners looking for other compounds to make use of. Now, the compound or the techniques have ended up changing in order to decrease the dependency on perc, even though it is not considered to be a carcinogen conclusively. Its strength is still on top and is by far one of the best compounds out there that you can effectively make use of.
The British dry cleaning equipment company Spencer also revolutionized the method of dry cleaning considerably. Up until the mid 20th century, dry cleaning was something that was carried out only in large factories that had room for a lot of loads. But, Spencer introduced machines that could be fit inside of stores to enable smaller commercial establishments to provide the same kind of services to their customers. This enabled more individuals to go in for the dry cleaning option and provided smaller stores with the ability to dry clean these clothes with ease. There were also coin operated models that didn’t quite become as popular as the store based options.
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