Dirty Laundry

Liz Kryder-Reid @KryderReid 2 Nov • 15 tweets • KryderReid/status/1323317015365509120 1/15 “Dirty Laundry” - a social and environmental history of dry cleaning in Indianapolis - reveals intersections of race, class & gender, as well as the toxic heritage of chemicals that continue to impact community health. toxicheritage.com #FestivalCHAT2020 2/15 Race, class & gender have long been entangled in imagery and discourse of textile care. This 1884 ad contrasts “The Old Way” washerwoman with the ease of a Missouri Steam Cleaner that could be operated by a child of twelve in her affluent home. #festivalCHAT2020 3/15 Status was marked not just the choice of clothes, but how they were cleaned. “Society is divided into three classes – the men who wear clean linen, the men who wear soiled linen, and the men who wear no linen at all.” Bates, The Laundry Book (1899). #FestivalCHAT2020 4/15 In Indianapolis, cleanliness was a racialized concept. 1922 laundry ad: “’laundering appears to be an efficient hygienic method of promoting cleanliness without danger to the patron’ This can not be said of the laundress who takes in washing” [INHist.Soc.] #FestivalCHAT2020 5/15 Arcade Garment Cleaner’s ad in The Fiery Cross, the Klu Klux Klan’s newspaper, advertised “Kareful Klothes Kleaners” Other ads read “Klassy Kut Kaps.” In segregated Indianapolis, race was particularly sensitive in the choice of laundries and cleaners. #FestivalCHAT2020 6/15 Middle class Black customers patronized Black-owned dry cleaners who “invested many thousands of dollars in order that Mr. and Mrs. Public may always have that highly desirable and sometimes illusive ‘new look.’ Ind. Recorder, 1948 Group portrait of eight Andante club members, from left, first row:... Group portrait of eight Andante club members, from left, first row: Dorothy Silver, Irene Wright, Joan Bruce, and Greta Thompson; second row: Kathy Higgenbotham, Marlene Burleigh, Alice Brown, and...… https://bit.ly/3e2OoI3 #FestivalCHAT2020 7/15 Unlike mining, industry, and nuclear waste, dry cleaners’ contamination was dispersed in retail corridors and corners throughout the city, particularly in communities of color. Laundry & dry cleaning listed in 1940 Ind. Bus. Dir. https://www.youtube.com/embed/__g-phpvBCk #FestivalCHAT2020 8/15 Benzine-based dry cleaning fluid was sold in 2-gallon cans for residential use. Laundromats had coin-operated dry cleaning machines. Dry cleaning fluids were widely dispersed and entered the environment through spills, dumps, leaks, & wastewater. #FestivalCHAT2020 9/15 Regulation of the disposal of the dry cleaning fluids changed over time, but practices, even when mandated by law, varied. An informant who works on site mitigation noted, “First place you test is by the back door. It’s always hot.” #FestivalCHAT2020 10/15 Example: Sid Tuchman ran a chain of dry cleaners in Indy, including one on Keystone & Fall Creek, operating from 1953 until declaring bankruptcy in 2008, the year after PCE (tetrachloroethene) was detected in groundwater at a nearby monitoring well. #FestivalCHAT2020 11/15 Once in the soil, PCE spreads through underground plumes contaminating groundwater and creating health hazards with vapor intrusion into structures. In 2012 the plume from Tuchman’s dry cleaning site was 4,500 x 1,500 feet. (EPA) #FestivalCHAT2020 12/15 Site mitigation in 2012 at the Tuchman’s Cleaners excavated Underground Storage Tanks (UST), but the contamination created one of the largest Superfund sites in the US due to dry cleaning chemical contamination. (EPA) #FestivalCHAT2020 13/15 Despite removal of leaking storage tanks and of contaminated soil, an underground plume of contamination continues to spread, affecting groundwater, well heads, and neighboring homes (EPA) #FestivalCHAT2020 14/15 In 2020, the site is now 390 acres, impacting homes, businesses, a wellfield, and Fall Creek, a major tributary to the White River. (EPA) #FestivalCHAT2020 15/15 Tuchman’s is now a car dealer & most people have no idea of the site’s history or the slow violence of the spreading toxic plume. Also invisible is consumer complicity in the environmental harm of textile manufacture & cleaning. bit.ly/35UM82f #FestivalCHAT2020 •••