Monday Open Line

Doing laundry was a wearying, time-consuming chore for many centuries. The industrial revolution and American inventiveness attacked the ancient chore on this date in 1858, when Hamilton Smith patented a rotary washing machine. It was hand-driven, with a crank turning a perforated shell within a wooden tub. This was scarcely a labor saving invention. People continued to use the tub and washboard, even after the first electric washer came along in 1908. A few years later, the agitator-type machine appeared and gained immediate popularity. Finally, in the late 1930s, the fully automatic washer with a spin cycle went on sale. Today, over 85 percent of the nation’s households have a washing machine. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at <www.census.gov>.