 The Yale Union Laundry Building was built to house a commercial laundry during an era , roughly 1900 to 1950 , in which many urban U.S. households sent out their laundry for cleaning rather than doing it at home . Before the invention of the steam laundry machine in the mid @-@ 19th century , women did most domestic washing at home using simple machines such as scrub boards , wooden tubs , and clothes lines . Steam @-@ driven washing machines and equipment for starching , ironing , and related tasks made industrial laundries feasible by the turn of the century . 
