WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How Washing Machines Work 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with a heart radio 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:22.000 and I love all things tech, including washing machines. Yep, 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.920 it's time for a classic episode. This episode originally published 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.240 on April twenty one, two thousand fourteen. It is called 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.360 how Washing Machines Work? And it seems simple, but it 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.040 turns out this is one of those topics that has 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.040 a lot more going on than you might imagine. So 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.680 let's roll up our sleeves and dunk our arms deep 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.120 in that soapy water and find out how washing machines work. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.360 All right, Lauren, Yes, Jonathan, have you ever had to 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.280 clean any of your clothes without the benefit of a 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:57.920 machine to do it for you? Actually sink wash a 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.640 lot of stuff. It takes some effort done it. Yeah, 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.000 it sucks. Yeah, it's not fun. It is not a 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:04.679 fun thing to do. It is the opposite of fun. 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:07.760 I have also done this. I Lauren and I have 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:13.399 both in the past, not together. Warren costumes for various occasions, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.360 like you know, it's Thursday, and so Thursday is my 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.039 favorite costumes someday. Some costumes you just they're not washing 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.680 machines safe, they're delicate. Yeah, so you get a kind 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:25.679 of not so delicate that you don't have to put 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.479 in a ton of effort to get them clean. Though. 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.200 So here's how Washington's to work. You get some water, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:34.920 You put some soiled clothing in the water. Then you 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.679 agitate the soiled clothing. And I don't mean you'd say 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.720 nasty things about its mother. You actually have to physically 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.479 move that clothing around in order to shake loose the dirt. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:45.760 If you really want to say nasty things about its mother. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.320 I mean, it pretty much naturally happens. It's not going 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.600 to hurt. Yeah, it might actually make you feel better 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:52.840 as you're as you're scrubbing up to your elbows and 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.520 make your roommates think you're really weird. That ship sailed 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.160 a long time ago. So yeah, you have to put 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.760 in all this physical work to kind of shake loose 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.360 the dirt. And then you take the water away, You 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:05.880 take the clothes away from the water, You take the 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:07.840 water away from the clothes. However you do it, and 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.040 then you rense it off, and then you try and 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:11.959 wring it out, and then you hang it up to 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.720 dry or however you want to dry it. So what 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:16.919 we needed to do was find a way of making 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.000 this process which used to be that that used to 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.880 be the way we cleaned everything didn't matter if it 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.040 was delicate or not. We need to find a way 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.880 to make that less of a chore. So we want 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.800 to talk about the history of washing machines as well 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.239 as how they worked. And to begin with, the history 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:36.839 is not all that clear because, as it turns out, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.160 a lot of people just didn't really bother, you know, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.600 recording all the developments in washing machine technology. Well, the 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.320 thing is that most of the time the washing was 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.600 being done by um, by people in the lower classes 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.160 who were not also writing scientific papers about advancements in 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.359 this kind of text. So so there's there's a whole 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.760 lot of disagreement on when stuff happened, where it happened, um, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.440 what the terminology was, because the terminology varied from town 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.400 to town. Yeah, yeah, whether or not you had a 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.240 stomp bucket or not. Yeah, Like, those are some great 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:11.920 terms that we're going to talk about here. But so 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.040 excited we're going to We're going to do our best 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.280 to wade through the confusion and lead you to the 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.400 other side where the light will be seen by all, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.240 and we'll have clean clothes there. That's my goal. So 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.240 first we're gonna start with ancient Rome because this has 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.000 nothing to do with washing machines, but it was so 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.320 cool I had to bring it in. So the ancient 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:36.120 Romans were among the earliest people's to offer public laundry services. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.760 They had an entire class of people who whose job 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.720 it was to clean clothes, and those those people were dudes. Yeah, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.360 they were dudes. This was this was men's work because 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.640 it was heavy duty, hard work. You see, back in 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.800 Roman times, all the clothing was made out of wool. Wool, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.320 that's heavy. Yeah, cotton didn't exist yet. Yeah. So I 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.960 don't know if you've been to Italy or various other 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.360 regions that were part of the Roman Empire, it's warm, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.080 you know, and people people get a little uh, you know, 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.600 a little little sweaty, little stinky, little stinky, and so 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.240 you need to clean those clothing. So they had these people, 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:18.560 these men called foulonis now foulons, where they they were 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.240 the in charge of cleaning the clothes. You would pay 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.360 them and they would take the clothes they put them 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.919 in a vat. It would be a vat that you know, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.320 go up to like say the waiter so has some 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.720 water in it. And then they'd stomp on the clothing 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:33.960 and stomp and stomp and stop. And this is that 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.560 physical agitation action we're talking about that shakes loose the dirt. Uh, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:40.839 And then they would end up pulling that out, ringing 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.560 out the clothes, laying them on the ground or hanging 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.640 them up. They would also use other materials to try 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.240 and whiten anything that needed to be white, They try 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:51.760 and bleach it. They would also use the sun to 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:57.200 bleach the stuff. So this is the way the earliest 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.280 clothes here. You know, we're talking about Roman times, how 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.560 they were washing them all the time. And uh, like 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.240 we said associate with men, that would be about the 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.960 last time we say that. So to my house, I 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.080 do the laundry. So I do the laundry and I 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.120 do the cooking. You know, we're not we're not tied 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:17.640 down by gender roles at any rate. Medieval Europe. So 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.400 this is where we start getting into some interesting terminology. 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.680 So people would use things called washing bats, also called 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.440 beetles or battle doors. Yes, raise the battle door and 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.440 watch that tunic. Yeah, it's essentially it's something that you 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.320 would use specifically to again agitate the clothing while it's 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.880 in flowing water. So usually this was done for most 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.760 people literally along the side of a river. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.000 you'd use it as kind of a I think that 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:49.400 washing bats referred to like the scrubbing related devices, like 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.520 it was used in conjunction with the scrubbing boards, right right, right, Yeah, 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.320 you know the scrubbing boards you also had there, and 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.480 you had to go to where the water was. I 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.880 mean some people had water come to them, but not 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.520 very many. H and again use that physical motion to 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.760 loosen dirt washed away by water. You can do this 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.040 in a tub with a handheld agitator if you weren't 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.920 near any sources of running water. And that's uh, that's 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.839 kind of how things how things went for centuries. Yeah. 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.440 Do we get to the eighteenth century and uh, at 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.920 this time, this is when we start to see the 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:26.640 concept of laundry being quote unquote women's work. The idea 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.080 of being that women, since you know, they don't have 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.120 to go out and farm all day, they can stay 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:32.920 at home and do the easy work, you know, like 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.400 the back breaking laundry that has to be done by hand. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.600 It really was a very tough job. I mean, especially 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.240 in places where you have to go run out and 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.520 get the water. What does the washing. Yeah, I got 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.640 a quote here from a Nevada housewife from the The 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.360 Kind of the Pioneer Days. Really her name was Rachel Haskell, 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.000 and she said that doing laundry was the herculean task 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.000 which women all dread, and also described it as the 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.960 great domestic dread of the household. Because this is I mean, 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.680 it wasn't just that it was back breaking work. I 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:06.720 mean you had to really put effort in it if 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.240 you wanted clean clothes. Also, the materials you used could 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.240 be kind of rough on skin. I mean we're talking 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:16.880 about some caustic materials. Yeah. For a long time, whites 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.200 and natural fabrics were soaked in pure lie instead of 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.440 being washed with soap because soap was really expensive. So 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:26.320 so that's really fun. Um. A recent study out of 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.120 the University of Montreal suggested that advances in household technology 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:33.160 during the twentieth century was partially responsible for a jump 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.440 in the number of of married women being in the 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:40.720 workforce from five percent sc nineteen hundred to circ nineteen 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.640 eighty UM and a decrease in time spent per week 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.080 on household chores from fifty eight hours to just eighteen 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.200 hours in the same approximate period of time, so dropping 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.200 forty hours a week. A full time job worth of 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.280 chores dropped in a week because of devices of convenience 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.480 like the like the washing machine. Yeah, you know, if 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.560 you didn't have that river handy, you would uh, you 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:07.680 would have have your have your bucket and a tool 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.240 called depending on where you were. And I had to 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.200 add this note because all of these tool names make 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.480 me so happy. H a poser, dolly, dasher, punch or punch. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.520 I'm sure I'd want to punch if I had to 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.840 do this. And something that at any rate looked a 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.760 little bit like a plunger with like holes or events 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.200 in the base um to let water squeeze through, and 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.280 you just stand over a tub on the floor and 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.960 and manually agitate the laundry. Yeah. By the way, you 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.120 guys are really missing out because Lauren and I are 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.160 both expressive people, and when we talk about how this happens, 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.480 we acted out. So it's too bad this isn't a 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.880 video podcast. No no, no, no, it's really good that 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.560 it's not a video podcast. So moving on, we now 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.640 get to seventy two. Now over in Great Britain, a 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.679 fellow named H. Sidgier invented what we think was the 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.360 first washing machine. And what this was was essentially a 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.720 cade of wooden rods and a handle to turn those rods, 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.080 and turning the handle move the rods which would agitate 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.120 clothes within a VT. So you're still using hand power 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.840 to do this, but you're no longer like actively in 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.400 the water moving clothing around. Yes, so that that was 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.120 a slight advantage, and other people started making similar sorts 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.000 of washing machines. Now most of these were not really 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.719 convenient for like home use. This was stuff an industrial level, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.960 and this is just too big and too clunky and 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.080 too expensive for most people. It just wasn't practical for them. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.440 But it was showing where things were moving. The first 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:38.760 patent wouldn't show up though, until about eighteen forty six. Right, Yeah, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:40.280 that's when you've got a pattern in the U. S. 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.200 Patent office for a washing machine that cleans closed by 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.160 rubbing them between two curved surfaces. And once again you 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.120 mechanically move this yourself. You had a lever, and the 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.080 lever is what made these curve surfaces move against each other. 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.640 And it was that rubbing motion within water with these 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.959 curved surfaces that would actually clean the clothing. Uh. It 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.640 ended up being a the popular design and in fact 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.679 would last well into the well the early nineteen hundreds, 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:10.800 so nearly a century, even after other alternative methods were introduced. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.600 So eighteen fifty one we get James King who invented 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.040 the revolving drum. Now that's the basis of most washing 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.560 machines and even dryers today. Yeah, that's that's what you've 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.320 got to come probably. Yeah, although an improvement was made 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.360 just a few years later in eighteen fifty eight you 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.479 had Hamilton's Smith who invented the revolving drum, with reversing 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.480 action being the drum could actually revolve in either direction. Uh. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.720 So this would allow lots of different washing machines to 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.320 use that kind of back and forth motion as a 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.960 form of agitation. So if you have to help do 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:44.520 some of the work for you of moving all that 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.560 water exactly, so like the front loading uh types of 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.600 washing machines we see today, most of those can turn 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.040 in either direction. So they're really descendants of Hamilton's Smith's work. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.720 Then in eighteen seventy four, I had to add this in, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:00.400 and I'm going to include the starting he joke I 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.800 wrote in the notes, which is that William Blaxton, who 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.680 was a corn planter and manufacturer, created a washing machine 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.760 and gave it to as a gift to his wife 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.000 for her birthday, and then she threw corn at him. Okay, 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.280 so so while I make a joke about the guy 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.280 buying his wife another appliance for her to do work with, 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.160 in reality it actually was simplifying her life quite a bit. 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.760 At that point. It could probably be considered a sweet gesture. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.559 because it means taking hours of time off of all 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.280 the chores that she would have to do. I mean 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.760 hopefully there was like chocolate involved two or something. Maybe 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:34.559 it was that. Maybe it was partially made from that, 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.319 in which case it was probably not not very effective. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.760 But no, no, actually a lot of washing machines, like 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.760 he actually started to offer to sell them because she 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.120 did like this. It did make it easier for her 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.080 to wash clothes. And again this was mechanically operated. There 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:51.840 was a hand crank. It wasn't like it was some 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:57.080 sort of automated Yeah, he wasn't pouring steel drums in 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.720 his corn field, not steam powered washing machine or something. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:02.400 So she she would turn it by hand, but still 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.680 made it easier. And because it was so practical, he 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.600 started to sell them. And the price tag on a 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.480 washing machine a William Blackston washing machine, according to the 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.480 sources I saw, and keep in mind, this is another 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.240 one of those things where I am skeptical, but every 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.120 source I found said it two dollars and fifty cents 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:29.440 for a washing machine. That's a bargain. Uh four. The 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.200 calculators don't even go back that in four two dollars 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:35.760 and fifty cents would buy you the Nevada territory, but 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:41.600 or a washing machine. Listen, I'm no scrub, but we 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.959 do have to take a break and listen to these ads. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.560 We'll be back to talk more about washing machines after 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:57.920 this quick break. In eight we had Ellen Eglwy who 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.200 invented a ringer to sit a hop washing machines and 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.080 helped dry out the laundry. She sold the rights to 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.560 her idea for eighteen dollars. The story goes that she 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.319 only sold the idea because of being a black woman. 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:12.920 She didn't think that white women would buy the product 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.480 if they knew who had created it. Um and I 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.800 guess eighteen dollars really wasn't too shabby at the time. 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.120 Though the fellow that she sold it to wound up 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.520 making a good deal of money on it. Although more 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.120 on that in just a moment. So in we have 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.599 the Maytag Corporation being founded. Yeah, now, it wouldn't be 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.000 until seven that they would come out with a washer 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.360 because Maytag did more than just washing machines, and and 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.959 that was still mechanical. Yes, that is true. It still mechanical, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.800 was not electric washer at that time. Well, which makes 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.080 sense because only um eight percent of US homes at 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.840 the time had electricity, only had running water. Yeah. So 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.080 you know, if you're going to market it to a 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.160 large group, and if you want to actually help people, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.400 then you have to design something that's going to work 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.120 for the most people. Right. I do think that the 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.600 Maytag repair guy probably got called out for more repairs 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.360 back in the mechanical days. He doesn't get a lot 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.439 of according to the commercials. He doesn't do very much 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.679 these days, although although at the time, since since telephones 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:15.720 weren't very popular thing just stand outside. Also, it's Colin 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.319 Ferguson who's the Maytag guy now, which is kind of weird. 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.960 That's very strange. He's seeing the guy from Eureka as 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.400 the Maytag repair guy. In nineteen o five, we have 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.440 Alva J. Fisher who produces the first electric washing machine. Now, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.560 the motor at that time was bolted to the side 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.520 of the washing machine and was unshielded. An electric motor. Now, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.480 I don't know about you guys, but I've been taught 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:40.520 that two things you don't necessarily want to mix together 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.120 are water and open electronics. Apple has told me many 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.320 times that if I do introduce those two things, that's 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.400 totally my fault. Um. Yeah, So it turns out that 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.080 water from the vat could sometimes come out and hit 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:58.160 the motor and cause a short circuit. Sometimes this would 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.280 result in damage to the advice. Sometimes it would result 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.640 in a jolt of electricity hitting a person. But it 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.880 wouldn't be until the nineteen thirties, presumably after one too 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.720 many laundry workers got zapped that they would start to 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.800 shield the motor from the rest of the washing machine, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.320 thus preventing water from actually hitting the motor. Uh kind 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.640 of funny that it took nearly three decades for that 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:26.040 to happen. We have the Hurly Machine Company of Chicago 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.000 introducing the first electric power washing machine, which had the 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.120 name of four According to one source, it was actually 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:38.280 called the Mighty Thor And this was based off of 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.520 Alva J. Fisher's design. So Fisher was working for the 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.320 Hurly Machine Company at that time. So Thour hits the market, 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.240 and in nineteen eleven we have developments with the oscillating cylinder, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.480 which and also with domestic washing machines using sheet metal 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.720 tubs mounted on angle iron frames to be the basic 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.920 design of your washing machine. That same year, the Uptown 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:06.600 Machine Company, which would later become the Whirlpool Corporation, formed 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.440 and produced electric motor driven ringer washers. You know we 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.760 we mentioned ringers, you said, the ringer on the other one. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:14.360 That was one of the patents that they bought in 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.920 order to build this machine. There you go. So you 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.040 if you wonder what a ringer actually is, it's think 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.440 of two rollers that are really tightly space together, and 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.600 you ring the clothing by putting it between the two rollers. 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.480 You turn a crank. This kind of pulls the cloth 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.920 through and it squeezes that excess water out. It's kind 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.520 of like imagining to steam rollers right next to each other. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.320 And also you don't want to put your fingers anywhere 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:41.000 near there because they will get squish. All right. So 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.280 then we get up to the nineteen twenties, that's when 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.920 some manufacturers begin to introduce electric or gas water heaters 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.840 that are part of the washing machine itself. Because while 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.480 we started to see running water entering in more homes, 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.560 not all homes had water heaters. If you had water, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.520 there was a chance it was just going to be cold. 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.640 So in order to make more effective washing machine, hot 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.080 water tends to wash clothes a little better than cold 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:06.840 water does. That we'll get we'll talk a little bit 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.280 about that. With the modern ones as well, some machines 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:15.200 had on board water heaters. Yeah. So but then once 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:19.200 we start seeing water heaters going into homes, this became 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.120 less important and you stopped seeing models with their own 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:27.680 onboard heaters. For the most PARTO Maytag introduces a washing 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.920 machine with an agitator. Um, it doesn't use an agitator 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.480 to introduce a washing machine. That would just sound irritating 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.200 some guy coming to your house and saying, hey, you're 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.000 closer dirty, you need to wash them. Now we're talking 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.600 about an actual component within a washing machine. Lauren is 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:46.160 doing her head shaking thing. Thirties we have manufacturers who 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.080 begin to include a drain pump motor to remove water 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.480 from a washing machine once the cycle is over. Because 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.920 if you're thinking, these early washing machines meant that water 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.040 magically entered into the machine, then you did your washing, 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.760 you turn some cranks or whatever, and then the water 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.520 atically went away. No, you had to put the water there. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.919 You had to take the water back out, you know, 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:06.440 you had to find some way of of you know, 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:08.720 some of them had like a little drain spout type 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.080 thing that you would drain at the end of the day. Whatever. 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.600 This was an actual pump that would use mechanical motion 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.480 to pump water back out. So again using electronics to 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.280 kind of simplify work. Uh. Nineteen thirty seven, we have 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.200 the Bendex Corporation introducing the first fully automated washing machine. Now, 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.040 this involves using a clock timer that's connected to the 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.880 washing machine controls. It tells the machine essentially what stage 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.760 it's in and therefore switches. Because before that you had 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:42.160 a manual switches that were that were operated by a human. Yeah, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.640 you had to actually sit there and and or come 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.359 back even more frequently to your washing machine, right right, 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.080 You have to sit there and say, oh, you know 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:54.280 that that the timer says that the time has passed 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.080 for it to do the wash cycle. Now need to 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.200 go and switch it over to do a spin cycle 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.240 or something along those lines. So, yeah, this this is 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.639 another big advance. In the nineteen forties, washer production in 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.600 the U S would largely stop as supplies and factories 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:09.920 were bent to the war effort, because that was when 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.800 World War Two was happening. For example, Whirlpool, which was 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:18.080 then under the name nine Corporation, produced some two million 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.800 components for P forty Warhawk aircraft, from like propeller pitch 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.760 controls to carburetor parts. Yeah, I hear. They were the 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.639 cleanest parts in all of the war effort. She's shaking 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.560 her head again. I'm just going to move on. Seven. 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.520 General Electric claims that they invented the first fully automated 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.240 washing machine. Now we assumed that they mean fully automated 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.240 washing machine that actually had an an agitator, right. The 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.560 previous one did not have an agitator. The agitator's job 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.399 again is to to provide that motion within the washing machine, 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.280 within the tub. That's that's moving the water. And yeah, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.159 it's really it's really meant to simulate an ancient Roman 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.280 stomping on your clothes. That's really what agitators meant to do. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.080 It's the way I like to put it. So we 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.480 then have very slow evolution and washing machine technology. It 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.439 wasn't exactly one of those areas that required h a 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.600 lot of of of advances to keep it, to keep 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.280 the industry healthy. For one thing, once you buy one, 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:16.880 you pretty much stick with it for a really long time. Yeah, 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:19.399 you don't need one for a good bit. Yeah, because 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.600 I mean they're expensive and uh and they generally last 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.760 a pretty long time. So we didn't see huge advances, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.399 but we did see some. And then we're gonna skip 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.959 to n that's when a certain James Dyson, British inventor 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.439 creates a washing machine that has two cylinders rotating in 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.359 opposite directions, which actually reduces the washtime and supposedly it 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.600 actually washes clothes more effectively than traditional machines. Wouldn't surprise me, 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.800 Dyson has made a lot of interesting stuff. Two thousand eight, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.640 it's the last thing we have in our timeline. That's 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.359 when engineers at the University of Leeds created a washing 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.480 machine that uses just one cup of water to wash 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.280 a full load of clothing. Wow. What Yeah, I don't 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.520 want to understand that when we talk about how much 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.960 water are normal washing machines used, one cup is right? 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.520 I mean we're talking about using less than two per 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.840 cent of the water and energy required by conventional machines 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.879 to wash clothing. And also the clothes are pretty much 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.040 dry after you wash them. You haven't used that much water. 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.320 So um, yeah, I don't have any more details on 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.680