The usual ironing board (still used today) is a long, narrow, padded board on folding legs that allowed the board to be raised or lowered. Once raised (usually to waist height), clothes can be laid out individually on the board and the creases remover from the clothes with a flat iron heated on the kitchen fire grate. A tea towel or other cloth could be placed over the clothes and ironed on top to prevent singing from the hot iron. If steam was needed the tea towel could be dampened a little. There were usually two flat irons. While one was being used and cooling down, the second one was heating up on the fire.Nowadays, with electrical steam irons, etc, ironing clothes is less of a chore.