Sarah Winchester's Patent on Laundry Tubs

Sarah Winchester's Patent on Laundry Tubs

Woelfl, Genevieve

Sarah Winchester's Finances

Sarah Winchester employed many servants and she would incorporate tools to make their tasks easier. One of these tools was centralize all of the laundry into one room so that servants would not have to constantly move to other rooms to complete the laundry. This particular image is from Genevieve Woelfl's book about the Winchester Mystery House. Not included in this image though, is also a device to hang the clothes to dry that was observable during the house tour.

This item demonstrates how Sarah Winchester had not only the ideas to creatively design her rooms and give them a purpose, but also the funds to make her ideas a reality as she patented this unique method of doing laundry. However, this porcelain laundry tub also highlights an issue of democratization of the representation as the only material signs of the servants having been there are in relation to Sarah Winchester. The servants are shown with only a one-dimensional identity as a servant to Sarah Winchester and not a person of lower economic status as we have no way of observing what their lives were like outside of being a servant.

Source:
Woelfl, Genevie. Sarah Pardee Winchester - A Driven Woman - Her Compelling Story. Redwood Publishers, Brooklyn New York, 1986.

Redwood Publishers

Kevin Thich,
Dominick Ott

1996