WEBVTT - How Washing Machines Work 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from stuff 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:14.880 dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.200 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Focalum, and today we 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.599 have an episode brought to you courtesy of Thomas f 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.960 via Facebook, who has asked us this question. Hey, guys 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.880 and gals at tech Stuff. It's just really the two 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.920 guys in the moring down an old guy. But okay, whatever, 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.720 I've wondered about some things for a while, and maybe 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:38.080 it's a possibility for episodes, or maybe I'll just get 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.199 answers right here on the site. I don't know, but 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.480 I'll throw them out there. How washing machines and dryers work. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.640 I find it fascinating how it can warm up the 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.080 water and temperate itself. The same with the dryer. Where 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.239 and how does it create this heat? And is it 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.200 a lot of heat? So we really decided that we 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.400 were going to split these up, so right now we're 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.360 just going to talk about washing machines because if we 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.320 try to do with washers and dryers, we'd have to 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:03.680 kind of gloss over everything. Yeah, I believe it or not, 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.320 this is a really interesting and complicated topic, as as 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.400 per everything that we go into going like we'll pick 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.279 that one because it'll be nice and simple, it'll be short. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.160 The other thing is that we often look at these 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.320 and like, well, we'll be able to explain how it works, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:18.720 but it's not going to be a very good episode. 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:20.280 And then as we start to do research, like, hey, 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.680 there's a lot of other stuff we can really really 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.080 is interesting that ties directly into this, and both of 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.119 us like talking a whole lot. So you guys when yeah, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.319 so all right, Lauren, yes, Jonathan. Have you ever had 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.560 to clean any of your clothes without the benefit of 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.080 a machine to do it for you? Actually sinkwash a 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.759 lot of stuff. It takes some effort, doesn't it. Yeah, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.120 it sucks. Yeah, it's not fun. It is not a 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:46.840 fun thing to do. It is the opposite of fun. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.920 I have also done this. I Lauren and I have 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:55.559 both in the past, not together, Warren costumes for various occasions, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.400 like you know, it's Thursday, Yeah, and so Thursday is 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.160 my favorite someday. Some costumes you just they're not washing 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.800 machines safe. They're delicate. Yeah, so you got a kind 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:07.840 of not so delicate that you don't have to put 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:09.600 in a ton of effort to get them clean. Though. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.360 So here's how washingtons to work. You get some water, 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.080 you put some soiled clothing in the water. Then you 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.880 agitate the soiled clothing. And I don't mean you say 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.840 nasty things about its mother. You actually have to physically 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.640 move that clothing around in order to shake loose the dirt. 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.880 If you really want to say nasty things about its mother. 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.440 I mean, it pretty much naturally happens. It's not going 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.720 to hurt. Yeah, it might actually make you feel better 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.200 as you're as you're scrubbing up to your elbows, make 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.760 your roommates think you're really weird. That ship sailed a 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.440 long time ago. So yeah, you have to put in 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.920 all this this physical work to kind of shake loose 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.480 the dirt, and then you take the water away, You 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.000 take the clothes away from the water, You take the 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.000 water away from the clothes. However you do it, and 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.160 then you rense it off, and then you try and 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:54.120 wring it out, and then you hang it up to 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.919 dry or however you want to dry it. So what 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.079 we needed to do was find a way of making 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.120 this process. It used to be that that used to 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.000 be the way we cleaned everything didn't matter if it 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.160 was delicate or not. We need to find a way 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.040 to make that less of a chore. So we want 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:12.960 to talk about the history of washing machines as well 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.400 as how they worked. And to begin with, the history 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.959 is not all that clear because, as it turns out, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.280 a lot of people just didn't really bother, you know, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.519 recording all the developments in washing machine technology. Well, the 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:28.440 thing is that most of the time the washing was 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.760 being done by um, by people in the lower classes 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.320 who were not also writing scientific papers about advancements in 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.480 this kind of text. So so there's there's a whole 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.880 lot of disagreement on when stuff happened, where it happened, um, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.200 what the terminology was, because the terminology varied from like 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.480 town to town. Yeah, yeah, whether or not you had 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.400 a stomp bucket or not. Yeah. Like, there's some great 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.080 terms that we're going to talk about here. But so 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.400 excited we're going to We're gonna do our best to 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.640 wade through the confusion and lead you to the other 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.120 side where the light will be seen by all and 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.720 we'll have clean clothes there. That's my goal. So first, 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.640 we're gonna start with ancient Rome, because this has nothing 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:11.400 to do with washing machines, but it was so cool 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.000 I had to bring it in. So the ancient Romans 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.280 were among the earliest people's to offer public laundry services. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.919 They had an entire class of people who whose job 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.839 it was to clean clothes. And those those people were dudes. Yeah, 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.520 they were dudes. This was this was men's work because 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.800 it was heavy duty, hard work. You see, back in 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.960 Roman times, all the clothing was made out of wool. Wool, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.440 that's heavy. Yeah, cotton didn't exist yet. Yeah, so I 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.120 don't know if you've been to Italy or various other 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.520 regions that were part of the Roman Empire, it's warm, 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.200 you know, and people people get a little uh, you know, 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.560 a little little sweaty lit little stinky, little stinky, and 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:54.760 so you need to clean those clothings. So they had 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.320 these people, these men called foulon is now Fulons were 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.840 the They were the in charge of cleaning the clothes. 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.000 You would pay them and they would take the clothes. 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.400 They put them in a vat. It would be a 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:09.280 vat that you know, go up to like say the 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.840 waster so has some water in it, and then they'd 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.640 stomp on the clothing and stomp and stomp and stop. 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.479 And this is that physical agitation action we're talking about 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.480 that shakes loose the dirt. Uh, And then they would 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.600 end up pulling that out, ringing out the clothes, laying 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.360 them on the ground or hanging them up. They would 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:31.080 also use other materials to try and whiten anything that 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:32.960 needed to be white, They try and bleach it. They 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.520 would also use the sun to bleach the stuff. So 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.120 this is the way the earliest clothes here. You know, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.200 we're talking about Roman times, how they were washing them 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.280 all the time. And uh, like we said associate with men, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:47.440 that would be about the last time we say that 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.440 except to my house, I do the laundry. So I 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.200 do the laundry and I do the cooking. You know, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.040 we're not we're not tied down by gender roles and 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.360 at any rate medieval Europe. So this is where we 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.360 start getting into some interesting terminology. So people would use 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:08.520 things called washing bats, also called beetles or battle doors. Yes, 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.480 raise the battle door and wash that tunic. Yeah, it's 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.200 essentially it's something that you would use specifically to again 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.440 agitate the clothing while it's in flowing water. So usually 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.680 this was done for most people literally along the side 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:24.960 of a river. Yeah, yeah, you'd use it as kind 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.320 of a I think that washing bats referred to like 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.799 the scrubbing related devices, like it was used in conjunction 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:34.960 with the scrubbing boards, right right, right, yeah, yeah, the 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.520 scrubbing boards you also had there, and you had to 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.239 go to where the water was. I mean some people 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.920 had water come to them, but not very many. And 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.000 again use that physical motion to loosen dirt washed away 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.560 by water. You can do this in a tub with 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.280 a handheld agitator if you weren't near any sources of 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.840 running water. And that's uh, that's kind of how things 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.680 how things went for centuries. Yeah. Do we get to 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.320 the eight teenth century and uh, at this time, this 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.520 is when we start to see the concept of laundry 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.520 being quote unquote women's work. The idea being that women, 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.880 since you know, they don't have to go out and 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:13.760 farm all day, they can stay at home and do 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.480 the easy work, you know, like the backbreaking laundry that 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.840 has to be done by hand. It really was a 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.400 very tough job. I mean, especially in places where you 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.600 have to go run out and get the water. What 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.560 does the washing Yeah, I got a quote here from 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.120 a Nevada housewife from the The Kind of the Pioneer Days. 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.680 Really her name was Rachel Haskell, and she said that 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.560 doing laundry was the herculean task which women all dread, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.840 and also described it as the great domestic dread of 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.720 the household because this is I mean, it wasn't just 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.360 that it was backbreaking work. I mean you had to 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.640 really put effort in it if you wanted clean clothes. Also, 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.680 the materials you used could be kind of rough on skin. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.640 I mean we're talking about some caustic materials. Yeah, for 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.080 a long time, white and natural fabrics were soaked in 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.800 pure lie instead of being washed with soap because soap 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.480 was really expensive. So so that's really fun um. A 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.280 recent study out of the University of Montreal suggested that 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.040 advances in household technology during the twentieth century was partially 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.480 responsible for a jump in the number of of married 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.280 women being in the workforce from five percent SIRC nineteen 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:25.440 hundred to SIRC nineteen eighty UM and a decrease in 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.000 time spent per week on household chores from fifty eight 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.200 hours to just eighteen hours in the same approximate period 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.760 of time, so dropping forty hours a week, a full 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.160 time job worth of chores dropped in a week because 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.400 of devices of convenience like the like the washing machine. Yeah, 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.840 you know, if you didn't have that river handy, you 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.200 would uh, you would have have your have your bucket 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.679 and a tool called depending on where you were. And 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:53.679 I had to add this note because all of these 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:57.560 tool names make me so happy. H a poser, Dolly dasher, 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.319 punch or punch. I'm sure I'd want to punch if 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.160 I had to do this. And something that at any 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.480 rate looked a little bit like a plunger with like 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.040 holes events in the base um to let water squeeze through, 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.080 and you just stand over a tub on the floor 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.680 and and manually agitate the laundry. Yea. By the way, 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.120 you guys are really missing out because Lauren and I 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.560 are both expressive people, and when we talk about how 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.320 this happens, we acted out. So it's too bad this 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.800 isn't a video podcast. No no, no, no, it's really 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.880 good that it's not a video podcast. So moving on, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.680 we now get to seventy two. Now over in Great Britain, 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.640 a fellow named h. Sidgier invented what we think was 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.400 the first washing machine. And what this was was essentially 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:45.000 a cage of wooden rods and a handle to turn 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.520 those rods, and turning the handle move the rods which 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.480 would agitate clothes within a VT. So you're still using 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:54.040 hand power to do this, but you're no longer like 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.120 actively in the water moving clothing around. Yes, so that 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.600 that was a slight advantage, and other people started making 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.520 similar sorts of washing machines. Now most of these were 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.760 not really convenient for like home use. This was stuff 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.440 an industrial level, and this is just too big and 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.800 too clunky and too expensive for most people. It just 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.000 wasn't practical for them. But it was showing where things 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.200 were moving. The first patent wouldn't show up though, until 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.440 about eighteen forty six. Right, Yeah, that's when you've got 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:23.760 a patent in the U. S. Patent Office for a 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.520 washing machine that cleans closed by rubbing them between two 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.040 curved surfaces. And once again you mechanically move this yourself. 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.440 You had a lever, and the lever is what made 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.520 these curve surfaces move against each other. And it was 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.640 that rubbing motion within water with these curve surfaces that 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.800 would actually clean the clothing. Uh. It ended up being 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.840 a pretty popular design and in fact would last well 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.800 into the well the early nineteen hundreds, so nearly a century, 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:54.440 even after other alternative methods were introduced. So eighteen fifty 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.920 one we get James King who invented the revolving drum 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:02.080 that's the basis of most washing machines and even dryers today. Yeah, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.000 that's that's what you've got to come probably. Yeah, although 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:07.520 an improvement was made just a few years later, in 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.040 eighteen fifty eight, you had Hamilton's Smith who invented the 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.160 revolving drum with reversing action, meaning the drum could actually 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.600 revolve in either direction. Uh. So this would allow lots 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.840 of different washing machines to use that kind of back 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:24.480 and forth motion as a form of agitation. So if 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:25.760 you have to help do some of the work for 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.240 you of moving all that water exactly. So like the 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.240 front loading uh types of washing machines we see today, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.480 most of those can turn in either directions, so they're 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.720 really descendants of Hamilton's Smith's work. Then in eighteen seventy 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.280 four I had to add this in, and I'm going 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.120 to include the snarky joke I wrote in the notes, 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.840 which is that William Blaxton, who was a corn planter 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.439 and manufacturer, created a washing machine and gave it to 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.760 as a gift to his wife for her birthday, and 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.640 then she threw corn at him. Okay, so, so while 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.440 I make a joke about the guy buying his wife 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.280 another appliance for her to do work with, and reality 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.400 it actually was simplifying her life quite a bit at 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.160 that At that point, it could probably be considered a 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.280 sweet gesture. Yeah, yeah, because it means taking hours of 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.840 time off of all the chores that she would have 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.120 to do. I mean hopefully there was like chocolate involved 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.120 two or something. Maybe it was maybe it was partially 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.440 made from that, in which case it was probably not 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.160 not a very effective but but no, no, actually a 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.560 lot of washing machines, like he actually started to offer 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.560 to sell them because she did like this. It did 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.760 make it easier for her to wash clothes. And again 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.040 this was mechanically operated. There was a hand crank. It 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.079 wasn't like it was some sort of automated. He wasn't 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:41.439 pouring steel drums in his scoring field, not steam powered 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.800 washing machine or something. So she she would turn it 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.560 by hand, but still made it easier, and because it 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.000 was so practical, he started to sell them. And the 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:54.520 price tag on a washing machine a William Blackston washing machine, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.920 according to the sources I saw, and keep in mind, 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.800 this is another one of those things where I'm skeptical, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.600 but every source I found said it two dollars and 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.719 fifty cents for a washing machine. That's uh. In eight 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:15.160 seventy four, the calculators don't even go back that two 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.920 dollars and cents would buy you the Nevada territory, but 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.720 or a washing machine. Then in eighteen eighty eight we 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.160 had Ellen Egloy, who invented a ringer to sit a 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.439 top washing machines and helped dry out the laundry. She 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.160 sold the rights to her idea for eighteen dollars. The 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.560 story goes that she only sold the idea because of 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.120 being a black woman. She didn't think that white women 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.840 would buy the product if they knew who had created it. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.640 Um and I guess eighteen dollars really wasn't too shabby 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:45.680 at the time, though, the fellow that she sold it 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.200 to wound up making a good deal of money on it, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.839 although more on that in just a moment. So in eight, 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.480 we have the Maytag Corporation being founded. Yeah, now, it 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.760 wouldn't be until seven that they would come out with 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.720 a washer because Maytag did more than just washing machines, 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.480 and and that was still mechanical, Yes, that is true. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.520 Still mechanical was not electric washer at that time. Well, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.000 which makes sense because only um eight percent of US 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.880 homes at the time had electricity, only had running water. Yeah, 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.080 so you know, if you're going to market it to 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.480 a large group, and if you want to actually help people, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:22.720 then you have to design something that's going to work 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.440 for the most people, right. I do think that the 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.920 Maytag repair guy probably got called out for more repairs 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.680 back in the mechanical days. He doesn't get a lot 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.720 of according to the commercials, he doesn't do very much 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.000 these days, although although at the time, since since telephones 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:41.760 weren't very popular thing, I'm just stand outside. Also, it's 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.240 Colin Ferguson who's the Maytag guy now, which is kind 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.000 of weird. That's very strange seeing the guy from Eureka 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.560 as the Maytag repair guy. In nineteen o five, we 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.560 have Alva J. Fisher who produces the first electric washing machine. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:56.480 Now the motor at that time was bolted to the 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.920 side of the washing machine and was unshielded an electric motor. Now, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.800 I don't know about you guys, but I've been taught 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.840 that two things you don't necessarily want to mix together 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:11.440 are water and open electronics. Apple has told me many 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.640 times that if I do introduce those two things, it's 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.720 totally my fault. Um. Yeah, So it turns out that 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.400 water from the vat could sometimes come out and hit 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.480 the motor and cause a short circuit. Sometimes this would 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.640 result in damage to the device. Sometimes it would result 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:30.960 in a jolt of electricity hitting a person. But it 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.280 wouldn't be until the nineteen thirties, presumably after one too 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.040 many laundry workers got zapped that they would start to 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.120 shield the motor from the rest of the washing machine, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.680 thus preventing water from actually hitting the motor. Uh. Kind 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.960 of funny that it took nearly three decades for that 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.360 to happen. We have the Hurly Machine Company of Chicago 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.320 introducing the first electric power washing machine, which had the 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.400 name of four According to one source, it was actually 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.600 called the Mighty Thor and this was based off of 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.840 Alva J. Fisher's design. So Fisher was working for the 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.640 Hurly Machine Company at that time, so thor hits the market. 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.560 And in nineteen eleven we have developments with the oscillating cylinder, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.800 which and also with domestic washing machines using sheet metal 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.560 tubs mounted on angle iron frames to be the the 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.720 basic design of your washing machine. That same year, the 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:32.080 Uptown Machine Company, which would later become the Whirlpool Corporation, 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.560 formed and produced electric motor driven ringer washers. You know 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.720 we we mentioned ringers, you said, the ringer on the 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.320 other one. That was one of the patents that they 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.520 bought in order to build this machine. There you go, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.640 So you if you wonder what a ringer actually is, 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.080 it's think of two rollers that are really tightly space together, 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.400 and you ring the clothing by putting it between the 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.240 two rollers. You turn a crank. This kind of pulls 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.440 the cloth through and it squeezes that excess water out. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.520 It's kind of like imagining to steamrollers right next to 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:02.960 each other. And also you don't want to put your 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.040 fingers anywhere near there because they will get squish. All right. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.399 So then we get up to the nineteen twenties. That's 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.280 when some manufacturers begin to introduce electric or gas water 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.720 heaters that are part of the washing machine itself, because 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.800 while we started to see running water entering in more homes, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.880 not all homes had water heaters. If you had water, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:24.840 there was a chance it was just going to be cold. 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.719 So in order to make a more effective washing machine, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.200 hot water tends to wash clothes a little better than 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.040 cold water does, so we'll get we'll talk a little 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.119 bit about that with the modern ones as well, some 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:41.080 machines had on board water heaters electric. Yeah. So but 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.880 then once we start seeing water heaters going into homes, 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.919 this became less important and you stopped seeing models with 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:53.600 their own onboard heaters. For the most PARTO Maytag introduces 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.600 a washing machine with an agitator. Um, it doesn't use 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.919 an agitator to introduce a washing machine. That would just 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.320 down irritating some guy coming to your house and say, hey, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.120 you're closer dirty, you need to wash them. Now we're 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.720 talking about an actual component within a washing machine. Lauren 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.159 is doing her head shaking thing. Uh. Nineteen thirties, we 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.439 have manufacturers who begin to include a drain pump motor 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.159 to remove water from a washing machine once the cycle 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.320 is over. Because if you're thinking these early washing machines 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.679 meant that water magically entered into the machine, then you 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.600 did your washing, you turn some cranks or whatever, and 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.000 then the water magically went away. No, you had to 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.040 put the water there. You had to take the water 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.200 back out, you know, you had to find some way 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:33.639 of of you know, some of them had like a 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.240 little drain spout type thing that you would drain at 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.959 the end of the day. Whatever. This was an actual 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:42.240 pump that would use mechanical motion to pump water back out. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.120 So again, uh, using electronics to kind of simplify work. Uh. 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.480 Nineteen thirty seven, we have the Bendex Corporation introducing the 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.840 first fully automated washing machine. Now, this involves using a 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.119 clock timer that's connected to the washing machine controls. It 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.159 tells the machine essentially what stay age it's in and 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:05.320 therefore switches because before that you had a manual switches 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.480 that were that were operated by a human human person. Yeah, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.000 you had to actually sit there and and or come 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.679 back even more frequently to your washing machine. Right right, 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.399 you have to sit there and say, oh, you know 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.600 that that the timer says that the time has passed 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.399 for it to do the wash cycle. Now, need to 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.520 go and switch it over to do a spin cycle 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.560 or something along those lines. So, yeah, this, this is 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.960 another big advance. In the nineteen forties, washer production in 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.920 the U S would largely stop as supplies and factories 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:36.240 were bent to the war effort, because that was when 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.119 World War Two was happening. For example, Whirlpool, which was 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.920 then under the name nine hundred Corporation, produced some two 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.800 million components for P forty Warhawk aircraft, from like propeller 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.959 pitch controls to carburetor parts. Yeah, I hear they were 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.640 the cleanest parts in all of the war effort. She's 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:55.280 shaking her head again, and I'm just gonna move on. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.080 Ninety seven. General Electric claims that they invented the first 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.560 fully automated shing machine. Now we assume that they mean 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.280 fully automated washing machine that actually had an agitator, right, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.880 the previous one did not have an agitator. The agitator's job, 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.719 again is to to provide that motion within the washing machine, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.600 within the tub. That's that's moving the water. And yeah, 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.480 it's really it's really meant to simulate an ancient Roman 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.400 stomping on your clothes. That's really what agitator is meant 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:25.520 to do. That's the way I like to put it. 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.720 So we then have very slow evolution in washing machine technology. 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.440 It wasn't exactly one of those areas that required uh, 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:37.639 a lot of of of advances to keep it, to 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.600 keep the industry healthy. For one thing, once you buy one, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.200 you pretty much stick with it for a really long time. Yeah, 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.720 you don't need one for a good bit. Yeah, because 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.880 I mean they're expensive and uh and they generally last 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.080 a pretty long time. So we didn't see huge advances, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:54.720