Washing machine

A washing machine is a device used for washing dirty laundry. It contains a barrel into which the clothes and other textiles are placed. This barrel is filled with water, and then rotated very quickly to make the water remove dirt from the laundry.

HISTORY

Ancient peoples cleaned their clothes by pounding them on rocks or rubbing them with abrasive sands; and washing the dirt away in local streams.

Rain washed a mixture of melted animal fat, or tallow, and wood ashes down into the clay soil along the River Tiber. Roman women found that this clay mixture made their wash cleaner with much less effort.

The earliest washing "machine" was the scrub board invented on March 28, 1797. The patent for "washing cloaths" was issued to Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire.

Early washing machines from the 19th century were made of wood and were hand cranked; the washing was carried out in a tub by a reciprocating plunger or paddle.

19th-century Metropolitan washing machine. By User:Itub 

American inventor James King patented the first washing machine to use a drum in 1851, the drum made King's machine resemble a modern machine, however it was still hand powered.

Hamilton E. Smith of Philadelphia is credited by many with inventing the rotary washing machine. In 1858, he received a patent for cycling reheated water in a washing machine. Five years later Smith received a patent dated July 28, 1863 for the reciprocating mechanism to reverse the movement of the revolving drum in the washing machine.

The inventor William Blackstone of Indiana built a washing machine as a birthday present for his wife in 1874. It was a wooden barrel that contained laundry immersed in soapy water, which when turned by hand machine removed and washed away dirt from clothes. This piece of equipment went on sale and Blackstone became the world’s first washing machine manufacturer, with each unit selling for $2.50 ($59.99 in today’s money).

A vintage German model. Wikipedia

Chicago engineer Alva John Fisher is credited by some for inventing the domestic electric washing machine in 1908. However, electric washing machines had been advertised and discussed in newspapers four years earlier. Fisher's machine was a drum type with a galvanised tub and was powered by a small electric motor. It was fitted with a self-reversing gearbox to ensure the clothes were not compacted into a solid mass. Fisher's invention was marketed as the 'Thor' by the Hurley Machine Company of Chicago, and was the forerunner of the modern washing machine.

The 'twin-tub' washing machine introduced in the 1950s had a separate compartment containing a spin-drier. This is a perforated metal cylinder that spins on its axis at high speed, centrifugal force flinging the water out of the washing.

Maytag made the last hand-operated wringer washing machine in 1983. Most other companies had stopped making them years earlier.

The first microchip-controlled automatic washing machines were introduced in 1978. By the early 1990s, most upmarket machines incorporated microcontrollers for the timing process. These proved reliable and cost-effective, so now most machines incorporate microcontrollers rather than electromechanical timers.

The first computer-controlled consumer washers appeared in 1998 when New Zealand-based company Fisher & Paykel introduced its SmartDrive washing machine line in the US. This washing machine uses a computer-controlled system to determine load size and to adjust the wash cycle to match.

FUN WASHING MACHINE FACTS

Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano declared that the washing machine has done more to liberate women than the Pill, abortion or the right to work.

A portion of the fourth movement of Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet is used in some Samsung washing machines, to signal the end of a cycle.

A new washing machine in India has a button for curry stains.

A man in Fuqing, China, was repairing a washing machine when he got his head stuck inside the drum. The fire department spend 40 minutes sawing him out.

Sources Thoughtco, Europress Family Encyclopedia 1999