The Price of Laundry in 1885 Seattle
As anti-Chinese sentiment surged in 1885, a local steam laundry operator touted the business growth of his 'all-white' enterprise as a replacement for Chinese-run labor.
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.
Yesterday afternoon a reporter met Mr. Hasler, one of the owners and managers of the Seattle Steam Laundry on Lake Union, and asked him how that enterprise was prospering. Mr. Hasler said: 'I feel very much encouraged with the manner in which the public is treating our enterprise. When I took hold of it, less than a year ago, it was doing a business of less than $10 per week; in fact, for the first seven days that we run it the business did not exceed $1 per day. Now we consider $100 a week only a fair business. We have enlarged the factory and added much new and improved machinery, so that we can wash and do up 1,200 pieces per day on an average, and then not run our machinery more than half the time. We employ 15 persons, all whites. Our greatest difficulty is to find ironers who understand their business. We have lately secured the services of a number of experienced laundrymen from California and the East. For family washing we charge fifty cents per dozen, and for single men two dollars per month, which is about the same as the Chinamen charge. We handle the clothing as carefully as possible, and endeavor to give satisfaction. Since the anti-Chinese agitation was started our business has increased in a marked degree, and if the Chinese go, we will see to it that the ladies of Seattle do not have to do their own washing.'
“Since the anti-Chinese agitation was started our business has increased in a marked degree, and if the Chinese go, we will see to it that the ladies of Seattle do not have to do their own washing.”
This article highlights the economic motivations behind the violent anti-Chinese exclusionary movement of the 1880s in Seattle. The normalization of 'whites-only' hiring practices in the service sector was a precursor to the systemic displacement and forced expulsion of Chinese residents from the city, a dark chapter in Seattle's history that reminds us how economic competition is often manipulated to fuel xenophobia.
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