The Dry-Cleaning Knight

One day in 1946 Jimmy Plinton, a U.S. Negro visiting Haiti, tried to send a pair of pants to the cleaners. This event set off a wondrous chain reaction which 1) revolutionized Haitians' dress habits; 2) started a major new business in Haiti; and 3) turned Jimmy into one of the most popular characters in the little (Maryland-size) Black Republic.

Like many an American before him whose clothes had wilted in the Haitian heat, Jimmy Plinton found, when he tried to get his pants cleaned, that Haiti had no dry-cleaning plant. He also found that this fact has all sorts of consequences. Haitian businessmen suffered from it, because they could not find much of a market for woolens, gabardines or satins. Most Haitians stuck to washable linens, since only a few of the rich could afford to send clothes to be dry-cleaned in the States, or to throw them away after they got dirty. Haiti's legion of nimble seamstresses were affected, because they could exercise their skill only on the familiar old linens. Diplomats were affected, because keeping a morning coat or a uniform presentable was a major problem. Jimmy Plinton, a U.S. Air Force instructor during World War II, had hoped to start an airline in Haiti, but as he surveyed the sartorial situation he decided instead to bring Haiti the blessings of modern dry-cleaning.

Jimmy went home to New Jersey, raised some cash, bought revolving tubs and pressing machines, and took a two-day course in how to run them. Soon he offered Port-au-Prince its first nettoyage `a sec. After the predictable number of mangled sleeves and missing buttons, Jimmy's crew of five began to get the hang of dry-cleaning. The tele jiol (Creole for word-of-mouth telegraph) advertised his service, and bundles of clothes poured in on muleback and in baskets on peasant women's heads. Jimmy expanded his plant, opened a laundry (the Blanchisserie Jimmy). Today his business is worth $125,000.

This week, amid singing and dancing in the street, Jimmy will inaugurate a new, $45,000 branch of his laundry, but this is hardly the whole measure of the change he has brought to Haiti. Dry-cleaning has cleared the way for two big mass-production tailoring shops in Port-au-Prince. Five haberdasheries have opened, and five more dry-cleaners have followed Jimmy into business. Women's ready-to-wear shops have mushroomed. Haiti's women now dress in rayon, taffeta and wool.

As the man who launched this Point Four program singlehanded in Haiti, Jimmy Plinton, now 38, is famous. Everyone from President Paul Magloire (whose glittering uniforms Jimmy cleans) to a back-country peasant greets him with a smiling, "Allo, Jeemie!" Few Haitians can understand why a man as successful as Jimmy still works in his own plant. But, responding to Jimmy's affection for the country and grateful for the revolution he has wrought, the Haitian government has awarded him the National Order of Honor and Merit, grade of Knight.

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