Via Ezra Klein, a TED talk claiming the washing machine is the great invention, by Hans Rosling. Actually, he uses it more metaphorically to discuss growth of wealth and population and green concerns. But it triggered my memory:
My mother would remember Mondays on the farm. Monday was wash day, of course. There were ironing day and baking day and I forget what else. When she was young, they had a "dog power" to run the washing machine, and their dog would know and hide on Mondays, which was a story she'd repeat regularly over the years. I never asked, but I assume they heated water for washing as we did, using a coal/wood stove, possibly with a boiler on the stove, or through a heating coil contained within the stove. I assume the washer simply agitated the clothes in the water, with a separate wringer (set of rollers to squeeze water out of the clothes. I vaguely remember the two big wash tubs used for rinsing the clothes, which then would be run through the wringer to wring out the water (could almost make a tongue-twister out of that). Then of course the clothes would be hung on the line to dry.
Mom's washing machine was a wringer washer, with no dog to run away and a wringer as part of the machine. It still presupposed a supply of heated water. And clothes were still hung to dry. It definitely required more work than today's washer which simply requires loading soap and clothes and pressing buttons.
So my point: while Rosling is right to talk about the importance of the washing machine in freeing women to learn to read, and to read books to their children, the machine itself and the detergents available to us, assume the presence of clean, preferably heated water. In that sense, public utilities, taking the human waste away by keeping it separate from the clean water provided for drinking and washing, become the greatest invention.
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