# Posser

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{{Short description|Historical tool used for possing laundry}}
{{for|the surname|Posser (surname)}}
thumb|Two possers, a glass washboard and a dolly tub
A '''posser''', '''ponch''', '''washing dolly''' or a '''poss stick''' was historically a tool used for ''possing'' laundry by pumping the posser up and down on the laundry in the dolly tub or directly in the [copper](/source/wash_copper), or mixing [laundry](/source/laundry) while hand washing it. Possers come in various forms; there is usually a vertical pole with a handle bar at the top but the base can be conical or domed. It has a double rim with a row of holes around the edge of the outer one. A similar tool with three (or more) legs was called a variety of names including posstick, peggy-legs, dolly-legs, and dolly-peg.<ref>{{cite web|title=Washing Dollies And Possers|url=http://www.oldandinteresting.com/washing-dollies.aspx|website=www.oldandinteresting.com}}</ref> Sometimes they took the form of a flat disk.  The naming of each of these items was regionally specific and the specific meaning of word changed over time.<ref name=term/>

Clothes washing in the early nineteenth century rarely used soap, "bucking" with [lye](/source/lye) instead.<ref>{{cite web|title=Bucking with lye, soaking in ashes and water, buck-tub, bucking-cloth and the buck wash|url=http://www.oldandinteresting.com/lye-bucking.aspx|website=www.oldandinteresting.com|accessdate=12 January 2018}}</ref> It was a communal event, and infrequent. It involved clothes boards and bats.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of washboards, invention of zinc scrub boards & other rubbing boards|url=http://www.oldandinteresting.com/washboards-history.aspx|website=www.oldandinteresting.com|accessdate=12 January 2018}}</ref> By the end of the nineteenth century, the tradition of a weekly washing day had been established. Soap was available in the forms of flakes and powder. The posser was not so much used to hammer the dirt out of the clothes, as to agitate the water which would be forced under pressure through the holes.<ref>{{cite web|title=Laundry history 1800s, washing clothes in the 19th century, Victorian and Edwardian laundering|url=http://www.oldandinteresting.com/history-of-washing-clothes.aspx|website=www.oldandinteresting.com|accessdate=12 January 2018}}</ref>

As hand washing has been replaced by electric and mechanical [washing machine](/source/washing_machine)s, words and implements used for hand washing have fallen out of common use.<ref name=term>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oldandinteresting.com/laundry-ponches-punches.aspx |title=Ponch, punch or ? |publisher=OldandInteresting.com |accessdate=2014-03-06}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}{{Laundry navbox}}
Category:Cleaning tools
Category:Laundry washing equipment

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Posser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posser) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posser?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.