A reader asked me about the term mangelhoudster. It literally means “keeper of a mangle.” The mangle would be a dvice to put laundry through to dry and flatten it. The occupation is mainly found in and around Amsterdam. It could be that the mangelhoudster owned a mangle that others could use for a fee, or that she was a laundress herself.
I have tried to find more documentation about the occupation but did not find much. An entry in the J.B. Glasbergen’s Beroepsnamenboek [occupation’s book], a dictionary of Dutch occupations, just lists the above explanation as a possibility, nothing definitive. The references I found in other books make this sound like a plausible explanation so I thought I’d share it for others to find.
Laundress. Credits: G.G. Haanen, collection RIjksmuseum (public domain)
About Yvette Hoitink
