Moment in Time (November 3, 2021)
New York native Frederic L. Martin and his Ohio bride Mary Paulus were married in Madison County in 1880. Records show that they were lured to California to start their own business in the economy fueled by the discovery of gold. They were not successful, but used a process taught to them while on the west coast and embarked on the business of cleaning oriental rugs for the industrialists in the region.
Frederic and Mary Martin and their children are shown in this 1910 photograph the year after his patent for the Bear-On-Easy washboard was granted. This washboard is at the left. At the right is a WWII era washboard with a glass rubbing surface. The glass was made by the Blue Ridge
Glass Co. in Tennessee. A board from one of the glass shipping crates was donated by a local Grandview couple after they found it stored in their First Avenue basement.
The couple moved back to Columbus and partnered with J.M. Schuster in a company called the Columbus Steam Carpet Beating and Renovating Works, located on East Main Street. The company operated from 1886 to 1890. That year, Frederic and Mary opened their own company, Martin’s Carpet Cleaning And Steam Renovating Works near the banks of the Scioto River in the German Village area of Columbus, and had their first child, Laura. They eventually had three more children, Ethel, Paulus, and Frederic Jr.
In his “spare time” Frederic Sr. started making washboards in his backyard. The washboard is a hand held laundry device, usually constructed with a rectangular wooden frame in which is mounted a plate with a series of ridges or corrugations for the clothing to be rubbed upon. They were first introduced in Scandinavia, and in 1833 a U.S. patent was issued for the style that Martin was building, that integrated a metal corrugated panel in the frame.
Martin started selling the washboards and in 1895 established the Columbus Washboard Company. Over the next 25 years, the business produced and sold fewer than 1,000 washboards, as Frederic and Mary continued to focus on the carpet cleaning venture.
The flood of 1913 presented a significant challenge to the Martin’s carpet cleaning business when their cleaning plant was destroyed by the flood waters. A second challenge soon visited them when the city of Columbus took their land to widen the river for flood control purposes. The family moved from German Village to 75 W. Fourth, and the company eventually moved into their Victorian Village home, where it operated until it bought a new building in 1925.
In 1908, Martin obtained a patent on a specialized rubbing plate, which he called the Bear-On- Easy plate. He designed two different styles, one for lingerie and one for sturdier clothing. In 1925, Martin's youngest son Frederic Jr. purchased everything the company owned from his father, including the patent and trademark for the “Bear-On-Easy” washboard, a handful of saws, and a metal-crimping machine. (The other son Paulus joined the carpet cleaning company, which is still family owned in Columbus as Martin Carpet Cleaning.)
Frederic Jr. purchased the Columbus Washboard Co. manufacturing facility in Grandview Heights at 1372 Oxley Road (between Third and Fifth) in 1938. He and his wife Margaret produced and sold more than 23,000,000 washboards between 1925 and 1987, when he died. Their business strategy was to develop innovative and specialized models of the simple washboard. For example, The “V for Victory” washboard was produced in 1941, and was made completely out of wood because of a nationwide metal shortage due to World War II. During this period the company had to get creative with surfaces, so another washboard type produced during the war used glass for the rubbing surface.
The washboard has also been used as a percussion instrument, employing the rubbing surface surface of the cleaning device as a rhythm instrument. It has been traditionally used in jazz, zydeco, skiffle, jug band, and old-time music, and is played primarily by tapping, but also scraping the washboard with thimbles.
By the early 1970s, all competitors to their washboard company had closed, leaving only
the Grandview facility to manufacture washboards. Pat Taylor, a niece of Frederic Martin Jr.,
inherited the company when Frederic Jr. died in 1987. She ran the business with her husband Mike before selling in 1999 to a small group of investors. To reduce costs, the partners agreed to move the company from Grandview to Logan. They purchased the vacant Godman Shoe Factory building near downtown Logan, where the company still thrives.