Washing Machine, Savior Of 20Th-Century Woman, Changed Lives, Didn't Change Who Did The Laundry

PHOENIX - Inspecting rows of gleaming machines in white and beige, Toni Dire remembered her grandmother as a slave to the laundry, bent for hours over an ancient wringer-washer.

"I would never want to do it," said Dire, who had just bought a $500 washing machine at Montgomery Ward. "I remember the hours she spent."

The machines may not be the equivalent of diamond earrings or fancy dinners on Mother's Day, but the automatic washing machine - one that washes, rinses and extracts water from clothes in one simple process - is the appliance many mothers appreciate the most.

"A Horton Washer will add many years to your life," reads an advertisement from an early-20th-century washer maker. "It will save your health - keep wrinkles out of your face - keep you youthful."

The washing machines Whirlpool built in 1900 were imprinted with this gallant phrase: "Saves Women's Lives." Such claims sound silly, but collectors and manufacturers agree the advent of the washing machine changed lives for the better. The device allowed women - and some men - to spend more time on families, hobbies or jobs.

"It's a marvelous invention," said Linda Eggerss, a spokeswoman for Maytag. "It's a timesaver and a labor-saver."

Sixty years ago this September, the first automatic washer made its debut at a county fair in Louisiana, according to Whirlpool. Now, washing machines are a $2-billion-a-year industry. Wayne Cornforth, owner of Cornforth's Appliances in Phoenix, says washing machines are good sellers all year long.

Before machines, clothes were washed in streams with rocks or heavy sticks. Then came the boiling tub with the corrugated washboard in which the dirt was cooked out of the clothes. Around 1900, electric-powered and gasoline-engine-powered washing machines began appearing, and by 1920 some 1,300 companies were making washers.

Manufacturers say washing machines may be among the most durable machines ever made. Ivy Parker, a 94-year-old British woman, still uses her 1946 Princess model made by Hotpoint.

"The marvelous way of how we got from the rock to the big white box has gone almost unnoticed," said Lee Maxwell, a vintage-washing machine collector from Eaton, Colo.

He said there is very little literature on the subject, nor is there any real museum display depicting the washing machine's evolution. Maxwell has his own museum of 640 models, and an Internet web site.

While washing machines freed women from some drudgery, laundry still is the chore few women can escape.

"In 93 percent of American families today, the female handles laundry chores, with only about a third of those getting help from a husband or child," Eggerss said.