A mangle is a mechanical laundry aid consisting of two rollers in a sturdy frame, connected by cogs and, in its home version, powered by a hand crank or electrically. While the appliance was originally used to wring water from wet laundry, today mangles are used to press or flatten sheets, tablecloths, kitchen towels or clothing.

It was invented sometime in the 18th century; it was a cheaper, simplified version of the box mangle. Box mangles were large and expensive; they were used by wealthy households and large commercial laundries. Middle-class households and small-scale washerwomen used the plain mangle. Later in the 19th century, the steam engine was harnessed to laundry purposes and commercial laundries used steam-powered mangles.

When washing machines were first invented, they were simply a tub on legs or wheels, with a hand-cranked mangle on top. Soon, the electric washing machine rendered this use of a mangle obsolete, and with it the need to wring clothes mechanically. In some countries, notably in the Anglo-Saxon world, mangles disappeared entirely.

Instead, mangles for pressing gained in popularity, often with built-in cloths that thickened the pressed object or big springs that kept the rollers tight. In the 1940s electric mangles were developed and are still a feature of many laundry rooms, appreciated for their ease of use compared to irons and trouser presses when pressing large pieces of cloth or doing neat flolds.

Mangles were named for the way in which early models extracted water from textiles. Later electric models were constructed with a rotating padded drum pressing against a heated iron which was either fixed or a rotating drum. Mangles were used to press (iron) flat textiles such as sheets, handkerchiefs and napkins. Skilled operators could also press shirts and pants on a mangle. They earned a reputation for mangling the hands of uncautious operators.

Home appliances | Laundry

Mangel (Gerät) | Mankeli | Mangel