WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How Clothes Dryers Work 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host John. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.040 That's Chrick LND. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.959 and I love all things tech. And it's time for 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.119 a classic episode, folks. This is an episode that originally 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.960 published May twenty one, two thousand and fourteen. It is 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:32.280 called How Clothes Dryers Work, so it goes kind of 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:34.519 hand in hand with the how washing machines work. If 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:36.559 you've been listening to these classic episodes, you know, a 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.440 few weeks ago, I did that one, but you know, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.600 well that one left me all wet. This one blows 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.800 me away, puns. Let's listen in. So, what was the 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.360 first clothes dryer? Lauren? The Sun? Yeah, that thing is 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.680 just pulling so much double duty. I mean triple duty, 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.840 like like Quinn tuple duty. What what above? Quickly? Yeah, 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.400 like infinite duty. Yeah, there's a lot of duty going 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.560 on with the sun, including drying our clothes. So clearly, 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.640 if you've ever had to dry close without having the 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.120 use of a dryer, I've done this. I think a 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.120 lot of people have done this at some point or another, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.320 maybe fewer today than back when I was a kid. 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:20.640 But it depends on where you live. If you're in 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.120 the middle of a city, perhaps yeah, maybe not so much. 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.280 You might have gone to a laundromat or something. But 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.520 most of if you look at history, most people use 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.160 the sun in some form or another by laying wet 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:34.640 clothes that have just been washed out on on on 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.640 a rock or hanging it on a line or over 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.280 the branch of a tree and just letting the sun 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.039 do its thing evaporate all that water. Usually take you know, 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.200 a couple hours, um, depending upon where you were at, 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.440 how hot it was, how humid it was. Humidity could 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.360 slow things down, obviously, but not only dried up the clothing. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.280 It would also cause colors to fade over time, sometimes 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.040 pretty quickly, depending upon the dye being used. Now, sometimes 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.080 you plan for that, that was what you want it. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.760 In fact, the Romans used to use various types of 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.720 minerals and rub them in on the cloth. They would 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.839 make during the drying process an arctic to um specifically 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.280 fade or or even bleach it. Yeah, so that way 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.799 you get that nice white toga look um, and then 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.359 you can go to all the parties. Because in Roman 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.320 times they were all toga parties. Okay, I was gonna 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:21.880 see if I can get an eye roll, but instead 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.160 of Lauren just gave me the staring right into my 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.160 soul look, which is terrifying. So we're gonna move on. Okay. So, 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.959 so wash your technology evolved, Um, it really intricately, as 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.440 as you may have heard in our previous episode. But 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.440 since the sun is relatively effective and drying clothes this 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.440 way is not really difficult, backbreaking, time consuming work, dryer 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:47.959 technology didn't really develop along the same lines. Yeah, it 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:49.960 just it wasn't as big a deal because yet to 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.320 wash something you had to put in a lot of effort, right, 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.120 you had to, especially before the washing machine, you had 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.639 to scrub things manually or stomp on them or beat 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.320 them against rocks or throw them away and get new stuff. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:03.960 I mean, it just was not easy to do, and 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.480 so there was a need to develop automation there. It 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.400 just it felt like there's this is so much work. 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:14.800 It's it's the woman's dread, as we said in the 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.960 last podcast. According to one quote, so that made sense. 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:20.880 But for drying, like you said, it was, it was 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.560 free to dry it by the sun, so you didn't 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.440 have to you know, put in any kind of expense 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.480 there except maybe for a clothesline and maybe some maybe 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:32.160 some closed pins, but that's about it. And uh yeah, 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:33.960 you just had to lay it out and collect it. 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.000 That's all the labor that was involved. So it wasn't 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:40.000 as important to develop a dryer, but it didn't make 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.040 things convenient, right, You couldn't have dry clothes very quickly 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.600 using that rate. So if it happened to be raining 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.840 or something like that, Yeah, so there certainly were people 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:51.839 who were thinking, there's gotta be a way to dry 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.280 clothes even if the weather is bad, or to do 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.400 it more quickly than just putting them all on the 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.400 sun for a few hours. And I'm sure that a 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.360 lot of people were doing this. But the story of 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.480 this kind of thing is a wee bit contentious, as 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.600 we find out every time we look into the history 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.960 of something. Yeah, as it turns out when you want 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.320 to look at the history of something that's been around 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.160 for at least a couple uh like like a century 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.880 or more, and especially something that was done by the 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.920 lower classes who were not writing about it or or 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:22.320 certainly not contributing to scientific journals very frequently, or perhaps 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.880 didn't bother to patent something, then it's hard to find 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:31.280 reliable records. So here's a big caveat for all the 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.919 historical stuff you're about to listen to, dear listeners. The 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.479 caveat is that we did a lot of background research 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.279 to try and verify as many claims as we could, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.320 and a lot of them are unverifiable, meaning that there 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.200 are no primary sources that are definitive. There are a 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.839 lot of sources that quote each other, but it becomes 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.919 kind of a circular thing. Yeah, which does happen on 0:04:55.960 --> 0:05:00.440 the internet, not entirely and frequently, um, but so so, 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.560 most of what we're going to tell you comes directly 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.360 from the U. S. Patent Office. That's what I relied 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.800 upon most heavily. Although our first example is not among 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.560 them because it wasn't a United States invention. It was 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:14.120 actually a French one. This is when you're going to 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.039 see if you ever do a search for the history 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:17.920 of dryers, this is going to pop up all the time. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.240 Usually the year is specifically seventeen, but the best I'm 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.800 going to say is around the year eighteen hundred, a 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.840 French inventor known only as post Shaun p O c 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.560 h o N sometimes listen as M. Posh On, but 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:35.320 I believe the M is for Monsieur Poshan, not necessarily 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.880 a name that begins with him created what he called 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.960 a ventilator, which to me sounds like a weapon you 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.760 would pick up in Duke Newcombe. But in this case, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.400 a ventilator was a metal drum that had some small 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.479 holes in it. So that might start to sound familiar 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.640 already to anyone who's used a dryer. And you'd put 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.360 your wet clothing into the drum and turn it using 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.560 a hand crank, right, and you think, well, okay, so 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.360 now you're just turning a drum full of wet clothes 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.400 with holes in it. What else you have to put 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.000 it near a fire, yeah, as your source of heat. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.279 Now here's the thing. Um. Sometimes this meant that clothes 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.240 would get a little uh you know, burnt, Yeah, a 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.000 little little extra crispy um or or full of smoke 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.240 in any case. Yeah, so you would end up damaging 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.320 clothes this way, And according to most reports, this is 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:26.480 the first tumble dryer, but didn't catch on mostly because 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.359 of the downsides. Right, the idea that you would end 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.760 up damaging clothes, Well, if you're gonna damage them, then 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.320 that's not helpful at all. So the interesting thing to 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.680 me is that this basic approach that he took ends 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:43.160 up being the kind of the central design of dryers 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.320 in the future. It would just take a long time 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:52.480 to perfect the heating elements. Years. Yeah, so sorry, but yeah, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.839 but it's interesting that again, we couldn't really find any 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.720 primary sources on this, so this story could be apocryphal. 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:01.800 How I her, I'm going to go ahead and say 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:06.800 that it sounds like it's possible, so we'll give it 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.480 a pass. Sure, then in this is the next really 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.560 official dryer technology that we have to report on, and 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.600 it's one that we actually mentioned in our episode about 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.960 washing machines. That's when um Ellen Edgley invented a ringer 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.680 to sit on top of washing machines and help dry 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.000 out the laundry before you hang it on a line. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.600 So so that's that's squeezing mechanism to the two rollers, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.720 and it rolls the clothing between and squeezes them with 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.000 incredible pressure that could crush your fingers if you get 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.960 them too close. Don't do it right right. The design 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.560 would later be integrated into washing machine models. Until these 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:46.960 tumble dryers later caught on. Yeah, soo, we have another 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.880 African American inventor, this one by the name George T. Sampson, 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.640 who filed a patent for a clothes dryer. In this case, 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.440 he spelled dryer d R I E R, which some 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.600 of the patents are in that spelling. Some of them 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.440 are d R Y E R I. Can do what 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.560 they want. Yep. His invention wasn't a tumble dryer, however, 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.360 although I saw a lot of notes that said it 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.600 was an improvement or, in the case of some of them, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:17.880 a betterment of Poshan's approach. Uh, it wasn't wasn't like, No, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.280 it wasn't a tumble dryer. The I think the betterment 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:25.000 or improvement would be that he used a stove as 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.080 the heat source as opposed to an open flame, so 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.160 it reduced the kind of damage that could happen. But yes, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.600 he as he pointed out, it was not a tumble dryer. 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:34.640 It was not like a drum that you put clothes in. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.680 It was more of a frame and you would put 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.840 the clothes within the frame, secure it in the frame, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.440 and then put the suspend the frame near the stove 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.600 and the heat would would end up evaporating the water 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.040 out of the clothing. So, uh, it's in that pattern, 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.080 is in the records, so you can actually go and 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:54.400 look at it. And if you look at it, you'll 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.720 see it is not a tumble dryer. It's not the 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.240 same style as posh on. So that tells me something else. 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.360 It tells me that some of the websites that I 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.079 pulled up while I was doing this just didn't go 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.920 and look at the patents. They just reported it as 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.720 being like this was an improvement on that tumble dryer, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:16.480 and always go that extra step your research. Guys. I'm 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.319 saying that to all of our listeners because I expect 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.960 that they will occasionally have to write things like if 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:22.520 you're a student, you may have to write a paper. 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.120 This is why taking that extra step, Like if you 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.040 just find a web page that says it's about that stuff, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.560 see if you can find a primary source, because it's 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.520 always going to give you a better idea of what 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:37.560 the real story. Yeah. Then we have a patent by 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:42.840 Seward H. Davis for his clothes drying machine, and it's interesting. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.800 So now he's decided to incorporate an oven directly into 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.559 the device to generate heat. So we're still creating an oven. 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.320 It's pre heating air because obviously an oven's not going 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.320 to generate heat at the speed where you could just 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.280 blow air across it and it's going to be hot, 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.760 so you would. But he also incorporated a motor in 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.800 his It was a motor that was connected by pulleys 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:05.920 to a rotating drum. So going back to that post 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.360 on approach right, and it would rotate in one direction 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.040 for a few turns and then go back the other way. Yeah, 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.559 because according to Davis, you didn't want to continuously rotated 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.800 in one direction or else the clothes would become hopelessly 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.679 entangled with one another, and uh, it would just end 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.880 up being a big mess. So his design had it 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:23.640 where it would rotate one way then the other, and 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.120 that would prevent the clothes from getting, yeah, from clumping 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:31.200 and getting all like super friendly inside the dryer. You 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.520 want your clothes to be a little bit antagonistic, Yeah, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.640 you don't. You don't want any fraternization inside the tumbler, 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.880 is what I'm saying. Um, So, yeah, pretty interesting. And 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.120 then he also he also specifically pointed out in the 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.600 patent that the whole idea was to allow the clothes 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.440 to fall, to tumble, like you didn't want to just 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.640 spin and try and force the water out, but to tumble, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.319 because that tumbling motion would have it go through that 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.240 hot air and thus evaporate the water much more quickly, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.360 pushing the air through it. And therefore sure, yeah, yeah, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.520 kind of cool. Nineteen five Henry Sieben he attempts a 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.160 different approach. His patent has a closed dryer that is 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.000 more like a heated cabinet with wire shelving inside it. 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.520 So imagine that you have like a little like cabinet 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.560 or closet and it's got wire shelves, and you put 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.360 the clothes on the shelves, and then you have an 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.400 electric fan that draws air through the machine, which allowed 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.120 for faster drying. Now, he didn't specifically include an element 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.240 that with heat air, but you would presumably have this 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.959 near some sort of other device that would heat the air, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.880 like a stove. So this cabinet would just pull the 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.040 air through, which would circulate through the clothes. So kind 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.800 of similar to Seward H. Davis's approach of tumbling, but 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.240 they're stationary, so it's just pulling the air. So again 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.320 this this another idea that becomes important in uh in 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.880 modern day dryers. So the important thing to remember here 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:52.679 is the fan that pulls the air through. These are 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.360 all various elements, the tumbler pulling the air through. These 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:57.920 are all things that are going to come into play 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.640 with the modern day dryers. Now out you still had 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.040 to preheat the air though with something like a stove. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.800 Then we get to nineteen thirty seven. Now here's the 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:10.679 guy that most people credit. Yeah, although again the citations 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.840 different from what I was able to find. Okay, see, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.320 because he filed for a patent in ninety seven, this 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.480 is James are more. James are right? Thank you. Um, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:25.640 it wasn't granted until, which we suspect world War two 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.360 probably had something to do, had other stuff on their minds, right, 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.760 the patent office was probably drafted. Uh So yeah N 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.920 seven is the filing and is the awarding makes perfect sense. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.520 But it was for a closed drying machine. And this 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.720 is the basis for closed dryers as we now know them. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.840 And so he what he did was he added applying 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.480 heated air that didn't need to be preheated in an oven. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.960 He wanted to have a heating element either gas powered 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.680 or electric, and in fact would eventually create both types. Right. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.600 He He also created a ventilation system so that air 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.360 can can move through the dryer and then exhaust out 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.480 of it, carrying that water vapor out. So you see, 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.679 this is the combination of that rotating drum and that 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:10.680 idea of the cabin exactly. So by combining the two, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.800 he has the best approach. And in fact, you could 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:14.600 tell us the best approach because it's the one that 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:19.080 lasted the test of time. So yeah, he uh has 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.800 often cited in a lot of the websites we saw 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:26.480 as having patented this this approach as early as nineteen thirty. 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.760 But I went to the patent office, I mean online 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.600 to the patent office. He didn't like, you didn't go there. 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:35.920 I didn't actually take a trip to the patent office. 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.240 I think they probably would have thrown the out of 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:40.800 the patent off. They were like, how did you find 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.880 your way in here? And it's like, I'd like to 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.600 see your archives from nineteen thirty. Yeah, that probably would 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.560 not have gone over well. They said, you've heard of 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:52.280 the internet, right, Well, you can actually do searches online 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.840 on the patent office. Google has a Great Patent search function, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:57.440 but you can also go to the U S Patent 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.240 Office and use their search function. I use both because 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:01.840 I could not find it in one, so I wanted 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.920 to try both versions in case you need to find 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.640 a keywords pretty pretty acutely. Yeah, but it but it's 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.880 it's a little more forgiving. But with the US one 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.560 you can find everything listed in chronological order, whereas with 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.040 Google you get it by order of relevance to your query. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.280 So in other words, you might see the first one 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.120 pop up and say nineteen forty five, and the next 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:24.920 one says nineteen twenty seven, and the next one says 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:26.760 nineteen eighty three, and you're like, oh man, it's gonna 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.120 take forever to find the oldest one. U S Patent 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.000 does it chronologically, with the oldest being the last on 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.920 the list. I went through both. The earliest I could 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.640 find was nineteen thirty seven as a filing date, let 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.000 alone a patent granted date, So I have no idea 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.080 where they pulled this date of nineteen thirty They also 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.320 said that he sold the patent in nineteen thirty six, 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:47.360 but he didn't even file for a pat until nineteen 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.680 thirty seven. I don't know where you get your information Internet. 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.480 You should check it more carefully. Yeah. So, anyway, he 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.320 did file in nineteen thirty seven and he did end 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.440 up working with another company in nineteen thirty eight. That 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:05.680 company would be the Hamilton's Manufacturing Company located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.760 Pride and Joy of Wisconsin of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Anyway, 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.680 they actually have a museum dedicated to this former manufacturing 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:18.280 company and they used James R. Moore's design. They actually 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.400 paid him for this, and they released in the June 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.360 Day clothes dryer based off this design. The early models 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.160 used gas for heat to heat the heating element, so 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.000 you'd have to like light the pilot light every time 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.200 you wanted to dry a load of laundry. And then 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.440 once we were done drying that load of laundry, should 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:36.960 probably remember to blow it out. Yeah, you had to 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.960 extinguish it or else you would just be wasting lots 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.640 of gas or possibly creating a fire hazard, which, by 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.920 the way, dryers big fire hazards in general. Do not 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.160 run your dryer and then leave the house just in case. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.120 I mean, I don't want to scare anybody, but it is, 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.440 but linked fires can happen. Yeah, so just a little 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:58.800 word of caution in the middle of the episode. But yeah, 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.520 later models were electric and they still created the gas 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.560 ones too, but manufacturing was interrupted shortly after they started. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.440 They produced about six thousand of them and then stopped suddenly, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.880 all because of the event we have already referenced in 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.040 this podcast, afore mentioned World War two. So world War 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.520 two causes a manufacturer to stop. This was the case 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.440 across multiple industries because, yeah, the war effort needed all 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:26.920 that material and and labor and a lot of the 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.600 factory space. Yes, so all of that meant that dryers 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.040 were not seen as being important to the war effort. 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:37.240 It was put on hold. World War two was was 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.680 over and the Hamilton's Manufacturing company got back into this, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.080 but they were no longer the only game in town. 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.440 By this time. Another big company, much bigger than Hamilton 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.040 Manufacturing actually got into the closed dryer game, and that 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.160 would be General Electric. And so then it was off 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.480 to the races. But but not not fast races, and 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:02.960 not cheap races. No incredible expensive races, very very slow, 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:07.080 expensive races. While we're tumbling around inside the clothes dryer, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.800 I thought maybe we should take a quick break, we'll 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:20.399 be right back. Around the same time, the first electric 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.520 dryer to include a glass window in the front was introduced. 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.360 And this is a design element, you know, it's it's 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.639 it's just kind of nice to look at. But I 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.000 wanted to mention it because it was designed by Brooks Stevens, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.080 who's another Wisconsinite. He was a Wisconsin designer who also 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.720 worked in an architecture, furniture, and auto design, including that 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:44.600 greatest car of all, the Oscar meyer Weenomobile. Man. Truly 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.720 a visionary. We could do a full episode just on that. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.600 Actually I should mention all the inventors we've talked about 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:55.280 have done some pretty phenomenal things besides inventing dryers. So 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.119 but this, I mean, no one approached creating the Oscar 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.800 Meyer Wiener be Also, you know we won't go back 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.800 and fill those out nineteen fifties. Well, according to the 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.960 Bureau of Labor Statistics, a dryer in the mid nineteen 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.240 fifties cost about two d thirty dollars, which if you 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.960 adjust for inflation, would be closer to two thousand dollars 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.399 for a dryer. Yes, so not a whole lot of 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.520 people could afford it on um. I shall also point 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.800 out that this same paper cited some of the erroneous 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.520 sources that I mentioned earlier, um, the ones that could 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:30.680 not be supported by saying the patent office, I guess 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.200 the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the patent offices don't 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:39.640 don't talk to each other frequently. Yeah, this inner departmental 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.240 stress type thing. This was I had to include it. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.400 I mean, there are some crazy patents out there, y'all. 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.240 If you if you ever have a really slow day 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.800 and you just want to amuse yourself, just start typing 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:57.280 random words into a Google patent search and then enjoy. 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.240 But one of the crazy ones I found was wild 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.479 by William C. Shoulin, and the title of the patent 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.879 is hair drying Attachment for clothes dryer. This this cannot 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:10.760 be what I think it is. I mean, well, if 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.399 you think it's you're putting your hair in a clothes dryer, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.760 it's not. But if you think it's a tube connected 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.000 to your clothes dryer that's used as a hair dryer, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.720 it totally is. It's a tube using the heat from 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:25.240 the the dryer. I guess I guess you know it's 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.560 good to conserve energy, and so if you're already creating 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.240 that heat, you might as well, yeah, dryer your hair, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.640 even though even though you're mostly using steam at that point. Yeah. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.000 So the hair dryer, it's one of those where it's 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:41.440 got like the whole thing that comes of the head, 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.800 the helmet. Yeah. I have no idea what those are called, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.040 and my hair days are long over. But anyway, it 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.440 would fit over the person's head and uh and presumably 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.760 dry it using the heat from the hair dryer. UM. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:58.000 I don't know how popular this invention was if it 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.240 were ever actually uh, you know built, because just because 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.600 something's patented doesn't mean that you're going to have real 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.000 examples of it. But if you want to look this up, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.080 I got a treat for you. Here's the patent number. 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.840 You can put into a search, three million, sixty four thousand, 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.960 three D sixty and you can look at the illustrations. 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.520 Depending upon the patent search you put in, you may 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.000 or may not need to use the commas in that number. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.399 You just could put in the digits three zero six 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.760 four zero. It's entertaining, but obviously I can't really show 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.600 it on an audio podcast at any rate. In um 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.400 a vacuum chamber related dryer was proposed. Yeah, William Lambert 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.200 Chanley filed a patent for a dryer that would use 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.240 a vacuum chamber. And this makes sense when you think 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.119 about it in the sense that in a vacuum, it 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.359 takes less heat to evaporate water. Yeah, so if you're 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.840 able to create a partial vacuum. We're not talking like 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.400 a complete vacuum, but if you were able to create 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.800 a partial vacuum within a dryer, then you could induce 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.600 wearing the pressure and yeah, you don't have to heat 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:04.040 up the air as much, so you don't have to 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.320 pour as much energy in it. As we'll talk about 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.639