Why do we iron clothes? Tracking its origins based on a sanitary hypothesis

While the task of ironing clothes is generally disliked and seen as a waste of energy, people continue ironing. There are no serious groups or movements against ironing, as it is a behaviour engraved in the collective mind. In this study, we consider it a cultural behaviour that is performed due to an underlying, historical reason that is yet unknown. The aim of this study, however, is to provide a historically appropriate reason for this task. A meta-analysis based on internet searches showed that people primarily iron clothes for aesthetic reasons, which is a non-satisfactory explanation. Some people, however, provided a hygiene-based motive. Based on this probable origin for the act of ironing, a historical review was conducted based on the premise of ironing to disinfect clothes. Some patents were found that dated back to the middle of the 19th century, so ironing had already been established to remove wrinkles at this time. Other clinical reports and recommendations suggested that ironing not only kills lice and nits on the clothes, it also disinfects them from the causative organisms of epidemic typhus and other louse-borne diseases. Thus, the use of ironing in early times, (i.e., before the invention of chemicals, such as pyrethroids, or in situations when there was a lack of water to boil the clothes, like war) demonstrates that hygiene is a plausible reason to explain the dissemination of this behaviour.

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