“[Dry cleaning] cleans all sorts of....fabrics...in such a manner that nobody would ever think they had been wetted...it neither changes nor alters color, but it takes the dirt, oil, and grease out of silks, cotton, and wool assisted by labor.”
History And an Overview
In “Dry Cleaning, Part 1. The Process and History: From Starch to Finish,” author Eugene Garfield noted the early history of dry cleaning. It has been studied that the Mycenaean civilization, which was in existence from 1600 - 1100 B.C., employed a basic dry cleaning process. An Oxford Classicist by the name of C.M. Bowra had demonstrated that the profession known as “dry cleaner” could be found in the clay tablets of the civilization. (Garfield, 218) Thus, Garfield says, this early Greek civilization may have used grease-absorbent materials as solvents to remove dirt from garments. Now, to this day, dry cleaning is done with solvents that are not necessarily “dry” in the sense that one usually......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 3109
Approximate Pages: 12 (260 words per double-spaced page) |