Definition
A laundryman is a person who conducts or operates a place where clothes are washed for hire — that is, a commercial laundry establishment. The legal definition tracks closely with the occupational sense but carries regulatory significance: the term appears in licensing ordinances, municipal codes, and police power jurisprudence as a defined class of tradesperson subject to local regulation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A man who is in the business of laundering.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A man who follows the business of laundering.
The common and legal meanings are nearly identical in substance, but the legal definition emphasizes the place of business rather than the individual's occupation. Bouvier's formulation — "one who conducts a place where clothes are washed" — locates the legal significance in the operation of a physical establishment, not merely the performance of laundry work. This distinction mattered in licensing cases, where courts had to determine whether a traveling laundry agent or a domestic servant fell within the regulated class.
Why It Matters in Research
LAUNDRYMAN appears in late nineteenth and early twentieth century municipal regulation cases, particularly in the context of anti-discrimination challenges to local licensing ordinances. The most historically significant legal use of the term arose from laundry licensing disputes in cities with large Chinese immigrant populations, where ordinances ostensibly regulating "laundrymen" were challenged — and sometimes struck down — as discriminatory exercises of municipal power. Researchers working in that period should treat the term as a signal for equal protection and civil rights litigation, not merely trade regulation.
The Bouvier citation to 105 Ky. 265, 49 S.W. 28 anchors the definition in a Kentucky state court context, placing it within a state-law regulatory framework. Researchers should be aware that the scope of who qualified as a "laundryman" under local ordinances varied by jurisdiction — some codes covered only fixed-location steam laundries, while others extended to hand-laundry operators working from residential premises.
When searching historical legal databases, note that LAUNDRESS and LAUNDRY appear as parallel terms in contemporaneous sources. Female operators are more frequently described as laundresses in older records, which can cause retrieval gaps if searching only for laundryman or launderer.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary offers a spare, functional definition: "one who conducts a place where clothes are washed," supported by a single Kentucky case citation. The definition does not engage with the regulatory controversies the term generated at the federal level, nor does it address the constitutional dimensions that made laundry licensing cases significant to the development of equal protection doctrine.
Bouvier's emphasis on the physical establishment ("a place where clothes are washed") rather than the act of washing reflects the licensing orientation of the cases in which the term was judicially defined. Courts needed to know whether a particular defendant fell within the ordinance's coverage, making the existence and operation of a premises the operative fact.
Historical legal dictionaries generally omit any treatment of the discriminatory enforcement context surrounding laundry regulation. Researchers should not read the stripped-down occupational definition as a complete picture of the term's legal significance in the period.
Jurisdictional Note
Laundry regulation was primarily a municipal and state matter. Licensing requirements, health and sanitation codes, and zoning restrictions varied substantially across cities and states. The term "laundryman" as a legal category was defined by local ordinance as much as by common law or general statute, meaning its precise legal scope must be determined jurisdiction by jurisdiction.