The Freelance History Writer is pleased to welcome Iva Polansky from the Victorian Paris blog. Iva Polansky, a historian, author, and blogger, writes fiction and non-fiction titles, including novels, screenplays, and magazine articles. Her blog Victorian Paris (https://victorianparis.wordpress.com/) has been educating and entertaining readers for over ten years. Please visit Iva’s author page on Amazon.
In 19th century Paris, there existed a boisterous group of hardworking women who played a crucial role in keeping Parisians clean and presentable. Nearly one hundred thousand washerwomen worked either in the brick-and-mortar laundries across the city, or in wooden constructions floating on the river called bateaux-lavoirs. They were banded together under the “Corporation of Washerwomen of the City of Paris.” This organization provided support and solidarity, allowing them to navigate the challenges of their profession collectively.
A bateau-lavoir
Life as a washerwoman was exhausting. They rose before dawn and labored twelve to fifteen hours a day, six days a week, with no sick leave or paid vacation. Once a year, though, Paris treated them like royalty.
Election of the Queen
During the feasts of Mid-Lent, the streets exploded with the frenzy of carnival, whose important actors were the washerwomen. With great pomp and circumstance, the women of each lavoir elected a queen, and the new sovereigns, with their escort, paraded on the boulevards in elaborate floats. Much drinking and merry-making accompanied the procession. In the 1890s, city authorities decided to nominate the Queen of Queens—the best of all the locally elected queens—to represent the spirit of the feast. This custom survived into the 20th century when it was interrupted by the WWII and was never fully revived.
The float of the Queen of Queens. Elected from among the laundry queens of every city district, a simple washerwoman enjoys her one-day fame
Midinettes
Arrival of the Midinettes by Jean Béraud
The Right Bank, around the Rue de la Paix, saw a rapidly growing number of couture houses and luxury accessories workshops employing young and fashion-conscious female workers. At noon -midi – these girls hurried out to take a light meal – dinette – in a cheap restaurant or simply on a public garden bench. The age of the midinette extends from around 1850 to the 1960s, when the haute couture business began to fade.
Midinettes, and their Left Bank sisters, grisettes, were steady figures in the romantic imagery of Paris. They acted as muses for writers and painters. Poems, songs, novels, and later movies paid homage to them. The tragic Mimi, from the opera La Bohême, immediately comes to mind.
A Milliner on the Champs-Élysées by Jean Béraud
The midinette is painted as she trots the streets delivering a dress or a new hat. She is immortalized dancing in public balls or enjoying a Sunday picnic. Little is said about a 12-hour day and insufficient wages. The girl, who wants to be fashionable, may resort to prostitution to pay for her finery.
The temptation is ever-present. At noon, the predators are waiting. Old men in the pursuit of youth gather at the entrance of the couture houses, offering the treat of a luxury lunch; men with specific intentions roam the public gardens, where the girls rest.
“With no regard for your white hair, you run after the midinettes. Merry Spring finds Winter scary – don’t bother the young girls,” says this postcard
Paris honored her working girls. The washerwomen became queens for a day. As for the midinettes, they participated in a grueling competition known as The Race of the Midinettes. The course started on the Place de la Concorde and led up the Champs-Élysées, and past the Arc de Triomphe, to end after 12 kilometers (approx. 8 miles) in Nanterre.
A newspaper describes the event in 1903:
“All these young ladies, competing first, in the most varied costumes, some, not all, very successful: then the crowd of relatives, friends, and finally innumerable, thick, the troop of the curious. The departure was laborious. At last, at half – past eleven, a real army sprang from the Place de la Concorde towards the Arc de Triomphe; cars, cabs, bicycles, motorcycles, struggled in the midst of all this and, although preceded by Paris guards on horseback, the Midinettes sometimes had to play fists to make their way. The first arrival was Miss Jeanne Cheminel, a pleasant twenty-four-year-old brunette who shot her 12 kilometers in 1:10, which is meritorious. This sturdy walker is a milliner, and that somewhat upset a few seamstresses, who, behind her, nevertheless obtained the best places. Here, in fact, were the first: Jeanne Cheminel, milliner; Lucie Fleury, seamstress; Marie Touvard, seamstress; Louise Balesta, seamstress; Alice Brard, seamstress; Mathide Mignot, seamstress; Kugel, seamstress; Marguerite Pradel, seamstress; Jeanne Brederie, seamstress.”
A competitor in the race offered a pleasant sight: a chic naval hat sitting on freshly curled hair, a dress with a lace collar, the waist squeezed with a corset. A bouquet of fresh flowers pinned at the shoulder completed the outfit
The end of the race shows considerable damage to the outfit and the hairdo. Sport was in its infancy and so was the fashion for the competitors
Bibliographic sources:
Moisy, J. The Laundries of Paris. 1884.
Working Girls: Sex, Taste, and Reform in the Parisian Garment Trades, 1880–1919, by Patricia Tilburg
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