Nineteenth-century Chinese laundry workers used a mouth-held atomizer to spread starch evenly when ironing. It was a glass object with a bowl at the bottom to hold the starch. By blowing through a glass tube over the liquid, the starch could be applied in gentle, fine sprays. People who saw this practice often misunderstood and thought they were spitting on the clothes. People who feared the immigrants (and felt they might be diseased) would often use this as a reason to avoid Chinese laundries, accusing the innocent laundrymen of spitting on the clothes of customers out of some sort of pent-up anger and hatred.

Several of us discussed this in an article: Ronald M. James, “Competition and Coexistence in the Wash House: A View of the Comstock from the Bottom of the Laundry Pile,” with Richard D. Adkins and Rachel J. Hartigan, Western Historical Quarterly 25:2 (Summer 1994).