Is technology liberating?

• That may not depend on the technology, but rather on how society's values affect how it is put to use
• I don't mean to imply that technology is value-free, but household technology is an example of a general area of development that could have been liberating but instead was used to reinforce existing values
• this analysis of household technology is valid only for middle-class American women--lower class women have had neither the technology to help them with their housework nor the choice of whether to work outside the home or not
• Starting in the second half of the 19th century, the technology used by the average middle-class housewife has changed dramatically.

 cast iron range

• cast iron range introduced about 1830, universal by the end of the century
• the only appliance in an 1899 model kitchen
• study that same year by Boston School of Housekeeping: in six days required 5 hours 26 minutes of maintenence and took 292 pound of coal
• this shows a clear advantage for the gas or electric range
• a gas or electric range saved hard physical labor and didn't heat up the kitchen
• but electric ranges were sold primarily as modern, as one ad said: "It is so modern, It's so clean, so cool, so efficient."

 1900s Westinghouse electric range

history of the vacuum cleaner

  non-electric vacuum cleaners

• lots of non-electric vacuum cleaners were invented in the late 19th and early 20th century--the development of household techology was not simply a result of the availability of electricity
• central vacuum systems had a brief popularity around the turn of the century

• Hoover and similar machines
• the first portable electric vacuum cleaner was introduced in 1907
• advertised in 1910 "Tell your husband you want it for Christmas.  He has every convenience for his work: typewriter, adding machine..."
• another 1910 advertisement "doing much of the work of a maid and doing it infinitely better than human hands can do"

Washing clothes

• before mechanization the first task was to carry water.  The tools were the washboard and wringer
• initially the process was simply mechanized, with some externally-powered machines introduced in the late 19th century and electric ones coming on the market about 1910

• 1920 electric washing machine ad: "His happiness as well as hers.  The man in the house welcomes Bluebird too--and delights in dispelling the gloom of washday.  For with Bluebird comes happiness--the happiness of a well-ordered household plentifully supplies with clean clothes." (note rising standards)
• by 1940 washing machines were affordable and widespread, but they still weren't automatic--the top-loading automatic washing machine was only introduced in 1947

 1940 Maytag Washing Machine

• heating irons on the stove was another unpleasant task in the summer

flat iron

• electric irons were introduced in the 1890s and were appreciated as a big improvement--some utilities gave them away free to promote use of electricity (sort of like cell phones today)

  the electric iron

• in the days before permanent press clothing ironing was such a burden that ordinary families actually bought large ironers

 ironer

the story of the refrigerator is fascinating from the technical point of view

• ice was delivered to homes in cities and towns, so iceboxes were fairly satisfactory
• refrigerators were introduced in the 1910s, but did not catch on until the late 1920s
• when GE decided to introduce an electric refrigerator they carefully selected the technology that cost less to build, required more mainenance, and used more electricity.

  GE Monitor on top Refrigerator, 1928

What was the impact of all this new technology?

• The statistics are certainly not exact, but the evidence we have shows that the amount of time spent on housework by women not employed outside the home has not decreased with the introduction of household technology

• or, defining housework somewhat differently:
• 1924-28: farm wives                            51 hours/week
• 1965-66 nonemployed urban wives      55 hour/week
• today

• rising standards: changing clothes every day instead of once a week, discovery of germ theory of disease in late 19th century
• household technology replaced servants--paid servants 99 per 1000 population in 1900, 58 per 1000 population in l920
• work expands to fill the time available.  A new ideology of housework was developed to keep housework a full-time job despite machines that made it easier
• home economics : housework is a job worthy of an intelligent woman (scientific management, Lillian Gilbreth, efficiency, rationalization)

• Technology can be used to reinforce existing values or to change them

household technology for many years did not liberate women
• When we choose our technology for what it can do for us, what goals do we choose and who does the choosing?