Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

Read the passage and select ALL correct options. Wrong selections lose points.

Before mechanical washing machines existed, laundry was a communal, labor-intensive event. In many villages, women gathered at a river or a shared stone trough on a fixed day of the week, scrubbing linen against rocks or ridged boards and beating it with wooden bats to loosen dirt. Lye made from wood ash served as a crude detergent, and boiling water was used to sanitize heavily soiled garments. This weekly ritual was as much social as practical: news and gossip travelled fastest at the washing site. Wealthier households sometimes employed a washerwoman, but for most families the task rotated among neighbors. Only with the introduction of hand-cranked and later electric washing machines in the twentieth century did laundry shift from a shared outdoor activity into a private, indoor chore performed by individuals rather than groups.