Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 213, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1910 — City to Have a Municipal Laundry [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

City to Have a Municipal Laundry

Kansas city.—it the plans of the park board are carried out, Kansas City will have a municipal; llaundry, which probably will be the first institution of its kind in the lUnited States. The board plans to, ;bulld a laundry to be run by the city, where the women of the congested districts can do their washing and ironing under sanitary conditions, and with improved machinery. The park board has been discussing this idea for about three years along with the public bath proposition. The idea has been suggested to the ,board and recommended that systems nfmtiar to those used in the munlcl |pal laundries of Europe be used. 'George E. Kessler, landscape architect for the park board, studied the t J

municipal laundries in He says it would cost about |30,000 to build a bathhouse and laundry ao> cording to general plans discussed b> the park board. Almost all the larger cities of Ger- , many and France have the municipal laundries, in Berlin they are kept busy every day and are comforts to thousands of housewives. The laundries open early in the morning and often the women-are standing in line with their bundles of clothes. Either .they furnish their own soap, bluing and other incidentals, or they are sold to them almost at cost by the city The customers are required to pay for heat, water and light The municipal laundry is not a charity scheme and the poor women realise it In addition to removing a burden from their shoulders a municipal laundry does much toward the' prevention of disease. Where now the women often do their washing in dark cellars, a municipal laundry, run with all scientific principles would prevent disease from spreading W means of clothes.