Did you know that during the 1880s, Atlanta was not the same city that you live in today? Trash was scattered throughout neighborhoods and unsanitary water and sewers surrounded homes.

These weren’t the only difficulties that communities faced. Many African American women worked as laundresses to clean dirty laundry. This may seem like an easy chore, but laundresses in Atlanta had to do everything by hand. They carried gallons of water from wells, pumps, and hydrants, dried and ironed clothes throughout their day, and even made their own supplies like soaps, starches, and washtubs. Despite everything they accomplished in a day’s work, they still weren’t paid or treated fairly by their employers. Washer women knew they needed to make a change for themselves and by the summer of 1881, they decided to achieve it.

That July, twenty laundresses united to form a group called the Washing Society to receive higher pay, respect, and independence. These women went on strike to reach their goal, and in three weeks their organization grew from 20 to 3,000 strikers. It resulted in lots of dirty laundry in the city: because people wanted clean clothes, they were willing to pay the washerwomen higher wages. By the end of the strike, their efforts improved how laundresses were treated throughout Atlanta and even the South!