Cascade Steam Laundry postcard

Postcard advertising the Cascade Steam Laundry in Minneapolis, ca. 1885-1890. The undercover reporting of Eva McDonald (pseudonym Eva Gay) in 1886 revealed that working conditions at the Cascade Laundry did not match this public image. “It looked more like a rat hole than a place where women were forced to work,” she wrote in the St. Paul Globe in that year. “The steam, darkness, heat and smell from dirty clothing made a disgusting combination…Such a work room is a disgrace to humanity.”