Profiles in History: Hershel Melmund, Inventor of the Washcloth

An undated photograph of Melmund in a uniform he’d purchased from Goodwill and rarely took off.

Much is already known about the origins of the hand towel, the napkin and, perhaps most notorious of all, the bib. But scholars have long struggled to find satisfactory answers about beginnings of the washcloth.

This heightened mystique perhaps explains the recent spike in recorded historian drooling after a trove of letters was discovered in the cheeks of a Norwegian dairy farmer, who’d gone to a dentist after 40 years of his wife complaining that his breath smelled of memoir.

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The letters, as you may have already inferred, were those of Dr. Hershel Melmund, long speculated — but never before confirmed — to be the father of the modern washcloth.

The letters provide invaluable insight into the early formations of the washcloth (ansiktshåndkle) and the man behind its formation. They are hand-written in Norwegian; an irony, perhaps, because upon reading them it is clear Melmund had no idea how to speak or write in Norwegian.

Born in Dinkelsbuhl, Germany, in 1802, Melmund was the 43rd 1/2 son of Emilia and Hymen Melmund. Emilia worked as a maid for a wealthy butcher and Hymen got work as a human clothes hanger.