The Great Laundry War: Why Seattle Needs a 'White Labor' Steam Plant
In 1876, local entrepreneurs argued that Chinese washermen were stealing clothes and that white-owned steam laundries were the only way to save delicate women from catching cold.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
One of the most urgent needs of our city is a steam laundry, operated by white labor. The Chinese washermen sometimes bring home clothes entrusted to them for purification, and sometimes they do not. They certainly can thrash shirts into kite-tails with a better grace than any people living. In San Francisco, however, the steam laundries wash and iron clothing so cheaply that but few families do their washing at home. As but few families employ domestics here, we believe that a laundry operated on 'live and let live' principles, would soon prove a bonanza to its projectors.
Many a delicate woman, in order to save a dollar or two for her husband, catches cold over the wash-tub and lays in the seeds of a spell of sickness that costs enough to pay the family washing for a year. So there is nothing saved the long run. In Portland and Salem, there are laundries in successful operation and we believe that Seattle will give one wholesome encouragement.
This 1876 editorial reveals how early Seattle’s housing and labor markets were shaped by racial exclusion disguised as economic efficiency. The argument that 'white labor' was necessary for hygiene and trust mirrors modern debates about who gets to provide essential services and how systemic bias is often coded in language of quality or safety rather than overt bigotry.
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