First Laundromat

<p><strong>APRIL 18: First Laundromat&nbsp;</strong></p><p><em>Profile America </em>—Monday, April 18th. For urban dwellers, the difficulty — or at least the&nbsp;expense — of doing their laundry began to ease on this date 88 years ago. In 1934, the&nbsp;first public, self-operated laundry in the country opened in Fort Worth, Texas. The first&nbsp;name for the business was “Washateria,” eventually replaced with the now familiar&nbsp;“Laundromat.” Early facilities were not necessarily coin-operated, and there was always&nbsp;an attendant on duty. The automatic washing machine came along in 1937, and by the&nbsp;late 1940s, the first unattended, 24-hour Laundromats were opened. Now, there are&nbsp;over 10,500 dry cleaners and coin-operated laundromats across the country. Employing&nbsp;more than 40,000 people, they do $4.3 billion of grime-fighting business annually. You&nbsp;can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.census.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">www.census.gov.</a>&nbsp;</p><h2>Sources:</h2><p>Joseph Nathan Kane, Kane’s Famous First Facts, Fifth Edition, H.W. Wilson Co., New York, NY 1997, #2442.</p><p><a href="http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1934/april_18_1934_92823.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">“Washateria”, accessed 9/2/2021</a></p><p><a href="https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=812310&amp;tid=CBP2019.CB1900CBP" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dry cleaners and laundromats and employment, County Business Patterns, NAICS 812310</a></p><p><a href="https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=812310&amp;tid=ECNBASIC2017.EC1700BASIC" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Revenues, Economic Census, NAICS 812310</a></p>