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"Red Electric" Washing and Wringing Machine pamphlet

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Machines begin to enter the domestic scene in the 20th century enabling women to do their housework chores more thoroughly and more frequently. The small electric motor made this and other machines possible in the revolution in household labor that occurred. This advertisement, featuring a woman in a long white apron feeding clothes from an electric washing machine into a standing tub, extols the virtues of the weekly laundry done the electric way and presents the machine as a kind of magical instrument for relieving labor. Mixing water and electric motors is dangerous, however, and one wonders about the safety record. Manufactured by the Hurley Machine Company of Chicago and New York, the 1915 advertisement promises that for 2 cents an hour the "Red Electric" will do the work better and in less time than ever before.

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