Greener Dry Cleaner & Wedding Dress Preservation in Austin, TX » start to dry cleaners http://www.austincleaners.net Greener Dry Cleaner and Eco Wedding Dress Preservation in Austin, TX Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:18:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 Austin Cleaners: A Brief History of Dry Cleaning http://www.austincleaners.net/2008/austin-cleaners-a-brief-history-of-dry-cleaning/ http://www.austincleaners.net/2008/austin-cleaners-a-brief-history-of-dry-cleaning/#comments Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:18:50 +0000 Adam http://www.austincleaners.net/?p=64 As hard as it is to believe, the origins of dry cleaning actually date back to as early as the 1600’s. Non aqueous substances, cleaning w/out water, were used in early Greece by the Mycenaeans, where the term “dry cleaning” first originated. The term Dry cleaner has showed up as an occupation on clay tablets that were recovered from archaeological digs from the Mycenaean period. Originally grease-absorbent sands and earth elements were used to lift stains from clothing, hence the name “dry” cleaning. Often times these different earth elements that were used to clean clothes were labeled as “fuller’s earth” after the tradesman that would use them to clean clothes and they were heavily guarded as trade secrets of their day. Although far from dry, today we continue to use non aqueous solvents in the dry cleaning process which undoubtedly is the reason we still label the process as “dry”. Although turpentine was documented as a “special secret” for removing stains as early as 1716, the use of organic solvents didn’t become widespread until the birth of the chemical industry in the 1800’s.

Father of Modern Dry Cleaning

The story goes that French born Jean-Baptiste Jolly, who owned the first commercial dry cleaner, found his calling by accident when his maid spilled Camphene from a lamp on his tablecloth. Jolly noticed the aggressive way in which the Camphene was able to remove grease spots on the tablecloth and after fine tuning his knowledge on cleaning with the solvent opened his doors to the first recorded commercial dry cleaning business in 1845

Dry Cleaning in the U.S.

The exact date is not known as to when the first dry cleaner was opened in America, however it is recorded that at least one New York dry cleaner was started as early as 1879. By 1910 dry cleaning was on it’s way as a major industry with widespread approval from a rising middle class and also with the invent of mechanized equipment it made it possible to clean a lot of clothes in a short period of time allowing for increased production. Surprisingly little has changed in the way of dry cleaning mechanical technology since it’s introduction to the U.S. with the exception of hydraulically powered equipment.

Developments in Dry Cleaning Solvents

Originally used solvents such as turpentine and the like were highly flammable and caused major public safety concerns for early commercial dry cleaners. Often these dry cleaning machines would ignite and could burn entire city blocks. That was until perchloroethylene, or PERC for short, was introduced to dry cleaners and quickly became the industry standard of solvents due to it’s flame retardant nature. To tie into earlier blog posts on the negative effects of PERC, only recently have major advances been made in the area of dry cleaning with an expansion of green dry cleaners in the U.S. If you have any questions about dry cleaning or the processes used don’t hesitate to ask!

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