Providing prospective laundry customers with audio-visual aids of new plant equipment is a time-honored tradition for textile service company suppliers.
 
That was true in 1951, when the photo above appeared in the May edition of the Linen Supply News. That month, the American Laundry Machinery Co., Cincinnati, debuted a 25-minute movie to promote its flatwork finishing machinery. The movie was designed to show off the latest in “fully mechanized, automatic flatwork ironing equipment.”
 
An accompanying article said the movie, dubbed Mechanized Flatwork Ironing, was filmed in “four, well-known, large-volume laundries.”  While these weren’t identified ...