Perhaps nothing has changed everyday life within the American household so much as the invention of electric household appliances. Within the first few decades of the twentieth century, most homes in the United States gained access to electricity, and inventors created and improved many devices that used this new power. The aim of these new electric devices was to shorten the time and decrease the effort required to maintain the household.

Before the introduction of electricity and running water, household jobs such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry provided full-time work for the women and children of the family. Laundry required a full day of hauling water in washtubs, scrubbing clothes on ridged metal boards called washboards, and hanging clean clothes out to dry in the sun. Clothes were then ironed with heavy flatirons, which were heated on wood-burning stoves. Cooking, too, was a highly skilled and...