Originally Posted by TonnieLoree
Too funny! It is called a "mangle". My parents owned a motel and we used to launder all of our sheets, and before permanent press became widely available we used this mangle for pressing. I can't tell you the age of this, but do not expect it to give you good crisp seams. These were mainly used in laundry services that are only looking for a quick method to iron huge amounts of linens. We used ours in the early to mid 70's and it was old then.
We too had on at our home - I learned how to iron with it (ours was not that small - it was a huge self contained box). Absolutely wonderful on everything that needed pressing. Ours was an Ironrite - here is a neat link
http://hubpages.com/hub/Ironrite_Mangle_Ironer
This is what ours looked like - do not know the age of yours but may be "younger" that the one we had. My Mom got hers in the 40's.