From Bill Barlow's Budget in 1897.  I wouldn't have guess dishwashers even existed in any form at the time.

 A really surprising item on A Hundred Years Ago:

Electric Dishwashers a Hundred Years Ago

I had no idea whatsoever that electric dishwashers existed in 1926.  It really surprises me.

It's another example, however, on how domestic machinery was entering the home at this point in time, the impact of which was about to revolutionize economics and how people simply lived.

We've discussed this in the context of the introduction of domestic machinery into the home in the 40s and 50s.  We've also noted before that this process, which had started early in the 20th Century, was delayed by the Great Depression.  This is a good example of that.

I took a look at this topic, which I've never even considered before, and it appears that one American socialite, Josephine Cochrane, was instrumental in the invention of machine dishwashers and was working on it in the late 19th Century.  She went into commercial manufacturing of them in 1898.

Cochrane was a widow at the time, and she passed away in 1913 at age 74.  In the 1920s a new type of design was introduced by William Howard Livens, a British professional soldier of an inventive mind who is known for his military inventions related to chemical warfare and flame throwers.

His front loading dishwasher introduced the modern form of the device.  Introduced in 1924, he continued to work on it and by 1940 had introduced the drying element to the machine.  A man of independent means, he served in both World Wars and died in 1964 at the age of 74.

On the same day that this advertisement appeared, December 12, 1941, this was the headline in the same paper:

If Romeo hadn't bought his dishwasher by that time, he was waiting at least four more years to get one.

In 1926 Cochrane's company, which still existed, was sold to the Hobart Manufacturing Company.  Using the name KitchenAid, it introduced the first house specific dishwasher in 1949, reflecting a period during which the introduction of domestic machinery, much of it improved by the advances of technology during the Second World War, were rushing into households.  Still, dishwashers were still regarded as a luxury item well into the 1970s, and as a kid not only did we not have one, none of the people whose houses I'd visit as a child had them either.  They were regarded as really bougie 

Indeed, my parents never had a dishwasher, and it would never have occured to me to actually buy one myself.  However, the first house we lived in, that is rented, when we were first married had one, which was my introduction to them.  When we bought our house (we've only ever had the one), it had one, and when it broke, we bought a new one.  Everyone has one now.

Which gets back to the point I made in the Maytag entry noted below.  It's not like washing dishes ever seemed like a huge chore to me, but we were a small family.  I'm sure for the homes of my parents, which featured large families, they were, particularly when combined with all of the other domestic chores that had to be done in a less automated world.

Related threads:

Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two

Labels: technology, The roles of men and women, tools and appliances, trends, Women, Yeoman's First Law of History, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

 

11 Forgotten Kitchen Gadgets (And Why Americans Stopped Using Them)

75 Years Later, a Casper Woman’s Fridge Is Still Running, Cold Schlitz Inside

 

75 Years Later, a Casper Woman’s Fridge Is Still Running, Cold Schlitz Inside

Thursday May 25, 1876. Stoves and ranges.

The Army issued specifications for types and supplies of heating stoves and cooking ranges for the first time.

A company of forty Texas Rangers left Laredo ,Texas for the Nueces Strip with orders to find, kill or capture John King Fisher, the leader of a band of cattle rustlers 

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 24, 1876. Mount Royal Park inaugurated.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Quebec (Montreal)

 A really interesting topic (and actually on point for the supposed purpose of this blog):

Gas and Electric Stoves Promoted a Hundred Years Ago

Old tools.

 

430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Are the Oldest Ever Found

The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.

Yeoman's First Law of History at work again.

And, frankly, a discovery that isn't very surprising at all.

World’s Oldest Harpoons Show Whaling Much Older than We Thought

World’s Oldest Harpoons Show Whaling Much Older than We Thought: Several harpoons and the remains of whales on the south coast of Brazil show that people 5,000 years ago were able to hunt the big cetaceans.

Older than we thought?  Well of course it is. 

Going Feral: Hunter, 82, Still Bagging Wyoming Big Game With Ri...

Going Feral: Hunter, 82, Still Bagging Wyoming Big Game With Ri...: Charming story, but nothing remarkable about it: Hunter, 82, Still Bagging Wyoming Big Game With Rifle He Bought In 1968 The truth of the ma...

Hunter, 82, Still Bagging Wyoming Big Game With Rifle He Bought In 1968

Charming story, but nothing remarkable about it:

Hunter, 82, Still Bagging Wyoming Big Game With Rifle He Bought In 1968

The truth of the matter is that there isn't a big game rifle on the market today that is any better than the Mauser 98, introduced in 1898, and if you insist on going with a non Mauser action, the 721 action, used in the 700, was introduced in 1948.  

Optics, however, have improved.  But even at that, for hunting purposes, not as much as might be supposed.

And finally, if you can't hunt with an iron sight (not that you must, but that you are incapable of doing so), you need to retrain yourself as a rifleman until you can. Then go back to the scope.

We'll get into this more at some later time.

Tuesday, October 26, 1875. The Virginia City Fire.

Virginia City, Nevada suffered a devastating fire when a kerosene lamp fell over and ignited a structure while high winds were blowing in the city.

Last edition:  

Sunday, October 9, 1875. Mormon Tabernacle Dedicated.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, Mormon, religion, Utah, Utah (Salt Lake City), Yeoman's First Law of History

Blog Mirror: 1925 Description of Electric Stoves

Really interesting.  I hadn't given much thought to when electric stoves really entered the scene, but I would not have guessed it was this early.

The conversation that follows is really interesting too, especially the item noting that electricity wasn't common for rural homes until the 1930s when rural electrification came in as a Depression Era project.

1925 Description of Electric Stoves

Diston G-36 Chainsaw. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Last edition:

M8 Buford. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1990s, 2000s, Armor, Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Wyoming (Dubois)

Blog Mirror: Hundred-Year-Old Tips for Caring for Wood and Coal Stoves

Really interesting glimpse into something routine from the past (which is what this blog is supposedly about):

Hundred-Year-Old Tips for Caring for Wood and Coal Stoves

Saturday, January 31, 1925. Leonhard Seppala and Togo.

The longest part of the Serum Run was undertaken by Leonhard Seppala with lead dog Togo.  They ran through the dark across the dangerous ice of Norton Sound.

Seppala was Kven, a group related to the Lapps.  He's a major figure in the history of the Siberian Husky dog breed.

The Saturday magazines were out.

A few interesting adds, the first for a range with a clock.

And the second for White Truck's 25th anniversary.

Of course, the humor magazine Judge was out as well.

Last edition:

Friday, January 30, 1925. Antitoxin runs out in Nome.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Serum Run, Afghanistan, Alaska, Alaska (Nome), Cartoons, Disaster, Disease, Dogs, Heroes, Ireland, Railroads

Tuesday, March 10, 1874. Clemson hand saw.

I have one.  You probably do too.

On March 10, 1874 William Clemson was granted a patent for a new handsaw handle that could be used with one hand or two.

Last Prior:

Sunday, March 8, 1874. The Death of Millard Fillmore.

Spurs

This is one of those posts that have been lingering for a long time. . . a very long time in this case.  The draft of this dates back to 2015.

I was looking back on my lists of drafts, I have a bunch, and realized I never finished this.  I'm not sure why, even though this relates to the underlying theme of the blog pretty well and I really should have.  As the blog slows down from daily entries, as we run up on the signing of the Versailles Treaty, I ought to post some of these older drafts that have something to do with the theme, more generally, of the blog, and which assist in what I hope will be a fairly historically accurate novel (which I need to get to work on more as well).

These are all spurs, and all spurs I own.  I have a reason for owning spurs, so these are all tools of the trade in a way. But how long have these individual types been around?

"Gumball Spurs"

The spurs above are a type worn by Western riders called "gumball spurs". They lack a rowell, and just have a blunt ball on the end.  Lots of non Western spurs are like this, but its fairly rare to see very many working riders wear this type.



The spur strap here is a classic Western style that you can find examples of going way back.

Here's another set.  These are a more typical Western set of spurs with a couple of small chimes that ring.  Everyone has probably heard the song "I've got spurs that jingle jangle jingle". Well, these do.

I bought the Colorado Saddlery spurs as I wanted to replace the gumball spurs for regular use, but I wasn't very happy with them.  So I went to these:

These spurs below are U.S. Army Model 1911 Spurs, the last model used by the Army.  These spurs are quite plain as a rule.

Seriously, a $500 Swiss Army Knife?

Wednesday, September 6, 1922. Miss Eliza U. Hoffman in the kitchen.

 

The photograph above had to be some sort of kitchen demonstration, but beyond that, what?

Unfortunately, I don't know.  I'd really like to.

Coal/wood (or is it gas?) fired stove.  Some sort of basin.  What we're left with is this:

"Miss Eliza U. Hoffman, 9/6/1922".

She appeared here too:

Sunday, March 22, 1922. Before jackhammers.

Usually, if I put a newspaper up here, it's due to some historically significant event it discusses.  But that's not the case here.  In this case I put it up as the cartoon depicts a tool that never even occurred to me.  A "pounder", which is probably not what it was called, is shown. Something that came before, apparently, hydraulic jack hammers.

In news of the day, the Allies agreed to amend the Treaty of Sevres, the peace treaty with the now defunct Ottoman Empire, but Turkish Nationalist refused to sign it as long as Greek forces, now fighting alone in Turkey, remained there.

Anti treaty officers of the Irish Republican Army convened a convention in Dublin.  The one-day convention rejected the treaty and the authority of the Dail.

Blog Mirror: Before the invention of safety

Yikes!

1922 Sterno Canned Heat Folding Stove Advertisement

Indoors?

Surely not. That's asking for a house, or more likely, apartment fire.  

On Sterno, I didn't realize that it was that old of product.  It turns out that the product dates back to about 1900, and that the company advertised its very cheap camp stoves as an ideal item for soldiers during the American involvement in World War One.  The company it's named for originally made a variety of other products in addition to the camp cooking product.

None of which I knew before today.

Friday March 6, 1942. Rationing typewriters

From Sarah Sundin's blog 

Today in World War II History—March 6, 1942: US Gen. Joseph Stilwell meets with Chiang Kai-shek for first time in Chungking. Typewriters are rationed in US; sales of new and used typewriters are banned.

Also from her blog is this excellent poster.  Normally I wouldn't repost it, but it's just too good for the topic we're going to expand out a bit on.

 

The massive increase for the need of all sorts of government employees in the war is something that we are, of course, well aware of, but this really emphasizes it. The war created a shortage of "stenographers", i.e., typists, and typewriters.  An interesting article on that in Washington, D.C. can be found here:

DC's World War II Typewriter Shortage

And another one, from a court reporter's firm, appears here:

How Stenographers Became Critical During WW2

We've dealt with the role of machines in relation to the change in women's place in the workplace before, and while our big thread on that dealt with domestic machinery, it also mentioned the typewriter.

Well, in one sense, not much. The concept that World War Two's working women stayed in the workplace is grossly exaggerated.  For the most part, they didn't.  Most in fact left their wartime employment and returned to domestic lives they'd hoped for, or at least expected, prior to the war.  Indeed, a lot of occupations did not open up for women for decades.  Lawyers I know, for example, who went to law school right after World War Two have related to me that it was extremely difficult for a woman to get through the schools as they were harassed, in part, by male professors (and students) who didn't feel they belonged there.  I know one woman who did go through law school in the 1940s, and was a highly respected lawyer, but she's an example of one. For the most part, women's occupations weren't a lot wider in variety after the war than they were before. A big exception was the role of secretary, which had become an exclusively female role by the 1940s, but then it was very much well on the way to that prior to World War Two.  And that role is telling as to the reason.  The reason women replaced men as secretaries (which was controversial at first) was due to a machine. . . the typewriter.

 

Manual typewriters, 1940s.

Of interest there, women actually did not work much as secretaries, as this thread notes, until the typewriter.  Their introduction into that role was actually quite controversial when it first occurred, but as noted above, in the period from 1910 to 1940, women completely took over the role as the prior occupation of scrivener, a nearly all male role consisting of people who transcribed things by pen and ink, died away.

Not that men didn't actually occupy this position in the military.  "Clerk Typist" was an Army occupation, and there were thousands of them in the service, mostly men.  Typing skills in men were still so valued as late as the Vietnam War that a demonstrated ability to type nearly guaranteed that an enlisted man would be assigned to that occupation while in the service.