Post Laundress Quarters
The company laundresses were the only women who received any legal recognition within the military hierarchy. Beginning in 1802, women serving as laundresses were allowed to accompany the troops in the ratio of four washerwomen to each 100 men. This was later adjusted to one laundress to every nineteen and one half men. Most of these women were foreign born, hailing from Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland or Mexico.
They received quarters, fuel, one daily ration and the services of the Post Surgeon. The heavy woolen uniforms and outer clothing were scrubbed clean by the women at the rate of $5.00 per month for officers and $2.00 per month for enlisted men. Some of the women supplemented their income through prostitution, or by serving as cooks and maids in the officers’ homes. They also functioned as midwives and nurses for the officers’ families.
Prior to 1874, the post laundresses at Fort Sill lived in a collection of huts, tents, picket houses and dugouts known as “Sudsville” or ”Suds Row,” on the south edge of the cantonment. By 1875, these buildings were torn down and the laundresses were living in the stone houses behind the cavalry barracks.
Critics of the laundresses described them as a “…rough lot living together in barely habitable quarters, and existing in a general atmosphere of squalor amid hordes of shockheaded… children of dubious parentage, scavenging chickens, and prowling dogs.” Others described them as “…kind at heart, though rough in manner, always prepared to help when needed.”
Due to the man complaints, the House Committee on Military Affairs began receiving testimony about the value of laundresses on military posts in 1876. As a result, General Order No. 37 of 1878 decreed that in the future, unmarried women would not be allowed to accompany the troops as laundresses.
Despite this directive, many company commanders continued to privde laundresses with rations until 1883, when a revised order closed remaining loopholes. The post laundry, operated by the Quartermaster, quickly replaced these colorful, hard-working women on the frontier.