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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Dirty Work in a Laundry

1915 film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ90899448 ↗
Source-derived summary

Dirty Work in a Laundry is a 1915 American silent comedy short film featuring Ford Sterling and Minta Durfee. It was re-released in 1918 as The Desperate Scoundrel.

Cast

Ford Sterling

Minta Durfee

Harry Bernard

Preservation

The film survives, and was released on 8mm and 16mm several times by Blackhawk Films.16mm prints are held by both George Eastman Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Dirty Work in a Laundry” as 1915 film. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dirty, Work and Laundry.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1915, 1918—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dirty, Work and Laundry providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dirty Work in a Laundry”, the useful work is to connect “1915 film” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q90899448. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1915 and 1918.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dirty Work in a Laundry”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dirty Work in a Laundry primary sources, Dirty Work in a Laundry archive and Dirty research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dirty Work in a Laundry”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Dirty Work in a Laundry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.