Chicago: Day 6 - The Antiques Fabricare Museum

Aaaagh, a Monday! A full day of us just checking out different places in the outskirts of Chicago. We had a lot on our agenda. The first of which was to visit this place briefly mentioned in the NFT - Chicago book, Pert Cleaners.
OMFG, if you love quirky stuff as much as I do, you'll love this place! The Antiques Fabricare Museum is not really a "museum" where you think there'd be gallery space and such. Instead, it is one man's loving tribute to all things related to the care and cleaning of clothes from the days of yore! The "museum" is situated in Pert Cleaners, owned and operated for 57 years by the gracious and knowledgable Mr. Tony Lupo. As for the admission fee, there is none! Even better!
Although his business has been around for nearly six decades, his display (which represents a mere fraction of the thirty years' worth of his antiques collection), has only been around for 27 years. He has more stuff in storage and at home. Yikes! There are shelves that are jam packed with antique soap boxes and cleaning implements. Several of those name brands still exist today like Ivory and Brillo, although they no longer make Brillo soap. More soap boxes...
If you look behind me, you can see a street performer speaking with the owner. The guy was dressed in a silver tuxedo and top hat and his face ws also painted silver. He was asking for advice about where he could find work. I just thought it too surreal of an opportunity to pass up.
Antique Carpet Beaters:
I love how the place is chock full of cleaning items - it's a crazy visual assault to your senses. This place is, after all, a man's business, so it had that musty smell from his antiques as well as that dry cleaner smell from his back room. All the while we were there, any time there was a lull (meaning no customers), Mr. Lupo would patiently answer any of our questions or take down a specific item to show us how it worked...
This iron, in particular was only in existence for only three years. I forget the name brand, but it used kerosene which you poured in the round compartment in the back. The manufacturers took this model off the market because people ended up having horrible burning accidents! Ya think?????
He also showed us several other irons that required coal, as well as irons that had to be put in fire to heat up. He also had more "modern" irons that were electric, but most of these were quite old.
More old irons...Here's a link to an antiques dealer who sells flat irons.
These were mini sewing machine samples that door to door salesman used to bring with them to show their customers what the actual product looked like. They are also fully functional, but of course, on a smaller scale.

More soap flakes boxes:
Antique Washboard:
Dusty window display of old irons. You can tell that the window sill and these irons haven't been cleaned...for a long long time.
A rugbeater, a wooden clotheshanger (it pivots up on a hinge and the "fingers" spread out so you can hang your clothes on them) which people would use in their homes back then, and another iron display.
Vintage boxes of ironing aids - more about Satina here...
Ivory's been around for years...check out the old Proctor and Gamble logo.

According to Wikipedia's "Procter and Gamble" entry:

Logo controversy
The former logo originated in 1851 as a crude cross that barge workers on the Ohio River painted on cases of P&G star candles to identify them. P&G later altered this symbol into a trademark that showed the man in the moon overlooking thirteen stars, which were meant to commemorate the original thirteen colonies.

Former P&G logo
The company received unwanted media publicity in the 1980s when an urban legend spread that the moon-and-stars logo was a satanic symbol. The accusation is allegedly based on a particular passage in the Bible, specifically Revelation 12:1, which states: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." P&G's logo consists of a man's face on a moon surrounded by thirteen stars, yet some claimed that the logo was a mockery of the heavenly symbol alluded to in the aforementioned verse, thus construing the logo to be satanic. Where the flowing beard meets the surrounding circle, three curls were inferred by satan hunters to be a mirror image of the number 666, or the reflected number of the beast. At the top and bottom, the hair curls in on itself and has been seen by such proselytes as two horns such as those of a lamb said to represent the false prophet.

These interpretations have been denied by company officials, and no evidence linking the company to the

Church of Satan or any other occult organization has ever been presented. The company has sued and attempted to sue a number of companies such as Amway and individuals who have spread rumors of this type, in some instances because they sell competitive products and have spread such rumors for the purpose of tarnishing P&G's image to increase sales of their own brands.[18] Amway was found not liable as a company because it did not instruct individuals to spread such rumors. An example of one such rumor was the fabricated account that the president of P&G had appeared on a Saturday edition of The Phil Donahue Show, where he purportedly declared that he was a Satanist and that the company's logo was satanic. This rumor continued to circulate, despite the facts that the company's president had never made such a statement in public, had never appeared on Phil Donahue's show, and Donahue's show never ran on Saturdays. Later variations of this rumor replaced the Donahue show with Geraldo Rivera's show.

In recent years P&G is one of many companies that has adopted a simpler, more straightforward logo, theirs now consisting of just the letters P&G. In television commercials in China, the former P&G logo still appears at the end of each commercial, and up until 2004, it appeared at the end of each commercial in Japan.[citation needed]
The original logo still appears on Procter & Gamble stock certificates as of this date, and also at the entrance of some P&G facilities.

I remember seeing that old logo on Crest toothpaste as a kid. I just thought it was the man in the moon. Now here's an ancient soap box...they don't make this stuff anymore!

Mr. Lupo demonstrating how to use the clothesdryer by spreading out the long wooden arms :
Mr. Lupo lifting the lid of an ancient "washing machine". The prongs were "agitators" which you had to agitate yourself by hand. One would dump boiling hot water in there, add their clothes and move the top around to loosen the dirt. If you wanted to get your clothes, you had to use a wooden pole with metal prongs to lift them out, otherwise you'd burn yourself.
More irons and an old mannequin with vintage clothes...

An old clothespin bag that you would hook over the clothesline (see wire handle that's attached), a wooden sock form that you would slip your socks on so you could "darn" them, along with an old wooden hanger
As Mommie Dearest would say,

Yeah, thank goodness that hanger was wooden!

Here we are...Mr. Lupo insisted on taking our photo by the sewing notions wall. He was very proud of that display.

That had to be one of the most educational exhibits ever! Plus, it was free!

Off to the cemetery!