Appliances for cleaning.

Experiments with various clothes-washing mechanisms went on sporadically through the 19th century, and by early in the 20th century the electric motor had been harnessed to this effort. In the 1920s, manually controlled electric washing machines were marketed, some using an agitator and others a rocking action to dislodge soil. The first automatic electric washer appeared in 1937, a front-loading machine with a horizontally mounted tub that, when loaded with clothes, with soap powder added, would go automatically through its cycles of washing, draining, rinsing, and spinning dry. This development was soon followed by automatic electric or gas clothes dryers (sometimes incorporated in a combination machine with an automatic washer) that were programmable by push button to supply either heat alone or hot or cold circulating air for a predetermined period or until the laundry inside was dry. Electric mangles and other ironing machines were early home-laundry developments, but they did not achieve the universal appeal of automatic washers and dryers, in large part owing to the marketing of increasingly sophisticated electric irons. These latter appliances offered a wide range of temperature controls and gave the user the choice of ironing fabrics dry, ironing with steam emitted from the iron’s bottom surface, or moistening the material with a mist of water directed downward from the nose of the iron.

To make the care of floors less burdensome, electric floor scrubbers and waxers were placed on the housewares market, sometimes in combination with the vacuum for cleaning rugs, and in 1908 a vacuum cleaner. To clean rugs, it had always been necessary to beat the dust out of them. But in the 1860s and ’70s the carpet sweeper—patterned on an early 19th-century horse-drawn street sweeper—was perfected. By this time, inventors were trying to utilize a partial vacuum for cleaning rugs, and in 1908 a vacuum cleaner was in service that generally resembled a modern upright model, with a rotating brush to dislodge dirt, suction provided by a motor and fan, and a bag to collect dust and debris. Ensuing developments added different designs: one cannister model was developed that had a disposable dust container adjacent to the fan and motor within a metal housing and relied entirely on vacuum to dislodge dirt particles; and another design, a “power-nozzle” cannister, augmented the vacuum with an electrically rotated brush at the pickup nozzle to dislodge dirt.

Appliances for comfort.

The electric fan was invented in 1892 by the simple expedient of fastening an impeller to the shaft of a motor, and the fan was the only electrically powered home appliance used for personal comfort in the first quarter of the 20th century. Large four-bladed fans turning slowly beneath ceiling-mounted motors circulated heat in winter and stirred up air for cooling in summer. The later development of a smaller and more rapidly rotating fan mounted in a vertical position, with an oscillating device that moved it back and forth through an arc, enabled one to concentrate its circulation in a portion of a room. The fan coupled with electric refrigeration opened the way to room-sized air-conditioning units that could be mounted on a windowsill or in a wall opening. (Later applications of central air conditioning to individual dwellings are not considered appliances.)

To reduce the relative humidity in uncomfortably humid rooms, the dehumidifier was developed, using air-conditioning technology: room air is propelled by fan across a cooling coil on which moisture condenses and then drops into a container; the dried air is then warmed and circulated. Conversely, air whose relative humidity is too low for comfort can be moistened by a humidifier, which uses a fan to blow dry air through a moistened pad. Both of these devices may be installed centrally in a home, but they are widely used in console form as appliances for one-room or small-space use. Electrostatic and negative-ion-generating air cleaners also have been developed for small-space use to precipitate out of the air such particles as dust and cigarette smoke.

Miscellaneous small appliances.

The sewing machine, essentially perfected by the mid-19th century, was the first home appliance to be widely distributed. First operated by a treadle, it was electrified in the 20th century. A large miscellany of small appliances have been developed for various purposes of personal hygiene and grooming. Among such electric devices are razors, toothbrushes, hair dryers, curlers, massagers, and therapeutic heating pads that supply either moist or dry heat. See also domestic service, stove, thermostat, refrigerator, freezing, fan, air conditioning, humidity, sewing machine.