What’s a tedious job that no-one enjoys? Something that you have to do, however boring it may be?
Doing laundry.
But do you really think about the history of the washing machine? The way that it has shaped society? Helped people escape the cycle of poverty? Or helped to create an almost equal footing of the two genders?
Since mankind pranced around wearing fig leaves the washing of clothes has been a necessity to maintain good health and hygiene. As a result of this the history of the washing machine goes back to the earliest of civilisations when people would wash their clothes in the river. Later in 1767 Jacob Christian Schäffer invented the first washing machine; but not how we would recognise it today. It consisted of pouring copious amounts of hot water into a tank, turning a lever to spin the barrel full of clothes then wringing separate clothes in-between rollers. All in all, a particularly time-consuming affair which is one of the reasons why it took such a long time for women to enter the workplace as there just wasn’t enough time. 163 years after the invention of the first washing machine the first fully automatic washing machine was invented in 1930. Freeing women from the shackles of doing laundry it left many women finding themselves with enough time to enter the labour market. This changed the status of women in society forever as women could now make an independent living without having to rely on provision from men thus creating a more equal footing for both genders in society. This is why the washing machine is the most important invention.
Still not convinced? The humble washing machine didn’t just help to bring liberation to the female race but also helped countries develop by freeing potential workers and helping them to escape the cycle of poverty. We know this by comparing societies that have and don’t have this humble invention. A study conducted in Peru found that in a slum of around 30,000 residents each resident found themselves doing an average of six hours of laundry a day for up to three times a week. And that’s not even including getting to and from the river. Most residents were forced to walk an average of four miles to reach a clean water source. Both walking to and from the source and washing the clothes take up extremely vast amounts of time and energy leaving them with very little time free to work and escape poverty. However, if they were lucky enough to possess this wonderful invention they would be left with considerable amounts of time and energy allowing them to enter the workplace, bring home income, escape poverty for good and simultaneously create a more equal footing of the genders by liberating the workers.
Have I convinced you yet? I’m not the only one who believes in the magic of the washing machine. Many renounced economists believe that the washing machine has played an important role in development, for example: Ha-Joon Chang, an economist at Cambridge university, claims that: “the washing machine changed the world more than the internet” and he is not alone. Hans Rosling, a Swedish statistician, who made it into the Times’ top 100 influential people list in 2012, called the washing machine “the greatest invention of the industrial revolution”.
So, the next time you find yourself doing laundry I urge you to think about the journey of the washing machine and the large amounts of people it has freed and liberated.
Amy Turner, Rosebery
