Washing Machine

Washing Machine

The invention of the washing machine relieved householders of an age-old drudgery--for centuries, clothes had been cleaned by soaking them in stream water and pounding them with rocks. In 1797, the invention of the washboard for scrubbing eliminated the need for rocks.

Hundreds of mechanical washing machines were designed in the first half of the nineteenth century, but they were hand powered. The earliest models rubbed clothes to clean them; later designs featured mechanisms that moved the clothes through the water. The user either turned a handle to rotate or rock the washing box or pumped a dolly to agitate the clothes.

Steam power was applied to commercial washing machines in the 1850s. An enterprising California miner washed shirts with his machine in exchange for gold dust in 1851. Brother David Parker of the Canterbury, New Hampshire, Shaker community patented his "Wash-Mill" for hotel use in 1858.

Most home washing machines remained hand powered. James King's 1851 model used the rotating cylinder principle. Hamilton E. Smith of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, patented a reversible-action machine in 1863. An underwater agitator design was patented in 1869. The Blackstone washer of 1874 featured a handle-and-gear device and sold for $2.50. By 1880, 4,000 to 5,000 washing machine designs had been patented.

In 1847, a design featuring a single wringer to remove water from laundered clothes appeared; the two-roller wringer appeared in 1861. A washing machine using a spinning basket to extract water was patented in 1873.

Electric washing machines first appeared in the early 1900s. A chain-driven electric washer was produced in 1906. Both the Automatic Electric Washer Company and the Hurley Machine Corporation offered electric washers in 1907. Electric wringer washers appeared in 1910. In 1911 the Maytag Company, which had produced its first hand-powered machine in 1907, introduced an electric Hired Girl wringer washer. These early electric washers were adaptable to gasoline power and could be hand operated as well. Maytag added the vaned agitator to its machines in 1922. Although a wringerless model was marketed as early as 1926 by the Easy Washing Machine Company, wringer washers continued to be the industry standard.

The automatic washing machine was introduced in 1937 by Bendix. This Model S required only two settings of the dial during its cycles, although the machine vibrated so ferociously it had to be bolted to the floor. A fully automatic Bendix appeared in 1947, along with a flood of other machines to satisfy the postwar demand for consumer products. Spin-dry machines overtook the old wringer types in popularity by 1953. Most machines that were manufactured in the mid-1950s featured lint filters, bleach and soap dispensers, and speed selection. By 1958, ninety percent of all American households used electric washing machines.

The contemporary washing machine offers many options so that the user can tailor the type of washing to the type of garment being washed. For example, the user can select cycles for permanent press, synthetic, or delicate fabrics; a range of temperatures for both wash and spin cycles; length of cycles; and prewash and soak options. Modern washing machines are either front loading or top loading--front loaders wash by tumbling the clothes inside a revolving washbasket, while top loaders agitate the clothes within the washbasket.