History of electric appliances

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By Colin Ramsden, September 2008.

A Chronological History and Analysis of Electrical Appliances

by Galway
When breaking the evolution of technology into a chronological timeline we can see that in recent decades it has slowed somewhat. When dealing with electrical appliances this is certainly true, especially when partnered with something like developments in health care; in 1900 the average life expectancy was 47 however, in 2000 this had risen to 77 years and is still set to grow to 82 by 2050.

Developments in electrical appliances went through an unprecedented boom in the early to mid twentieth century however post-boom, there has only been progress made in certain areas and this article analyses the rise of the electrical appliances market and possible reasons for its downward curb in the latter stages of the last millennia.

In the mid nineteenth century, there was a flurry of exciting patents around Western Europe for various contraptions designed for mechanising cleaning. These appliances would harness various energies such as kinetic energy to make the job of cleaning simpler. At this stage in our electrical appliances timeline, the focus was on discovery as well as profit.

The first vacuum cleaner has been accredited to the Englishman H. Cecil Booth who drew the engine powered contraption on a horse and cart with enormous hoses flailing in all directions which were then used to clean the house. The expense, practicality and accessibility of the invention were not viable for the general market and this meant this technology was not developed further.

This is a trend with many electrical appliances as their development went hand in hand with market demand.
Obviously the innovations in harnessing and distributing electrical energy opened the market right up however with the economic climate in the first half of the twentieth century being unstable at best, the mass distribution of electrical appliances was reserved for post World War 2.

Despite the first practical electric vacuum cleaner being available from 1907, the first electric toaster from 1909 and the first electric dishwasher and domestic refrigerator hitting the market in 1913, their usage were limited. This was due to the fact that the general populace could not afford to purchase, power or maintain these electrical appliances.

With WW1, the depression of the 1930s and the devastation of WW2 crippling Europe economically it was not until the end of rationing in the latter half of the twentieth century that electrical appliances started taking off. The electrical appliances market of the United States developed far earlier due their economy not being as damaged by the past decades however Europe made a speedy recovery.

Following in the footsteps of the US the development of electrical appliances was focussed on market viability and profit. The manufacturing costs were dragged down and production and distribution were increased. The Electrical appliances market as no longer focussed around innovation but commercialism.

Between 1970 and 1990 there were virtually no innovative new electrical appliances developed. The market was making billions by regurgitating new generations of the same product with slight improvements. It was not until the 1990s, when environmental concerns took hold of the market, that innovative electrical appliances were developed.

Developments in home cinema and television have been excellent examples of this commercialism versus innovation battle. The leaps from celluloid to digital home video in the latter half of the last century epitomise innovation for a commercial market. The parallel can be made with the healthcare industry, examining the massive developments of vaccines in the 1920s, which then laid dormant until the 1960s when the pharmaceutical industry had a strangle hold on new developments.

A conflict of interest could be cited in a climate where companies that make huge amounts of money from sickness are responsible for major medicinal advances, however that is a different story. The electrical appliances industry is still developing a rapid pace due to there being demand in the market for increasingly compact and user friendly technologies.

About the Author

Shaun Parker is a leading expert in the manufacture of electrical appliances and has years of experience as a distributor.

Article Source: Content for Reprint

http://www.content4reprint.com/technology/a-chronological-history-and-analysis-of-electrical-appliances.htm

 

 

Electricity and the Housewife http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/exhibit/exhibit.php?id=159251&lid=1&seq=3 In the late 1800s, when many electric technologies were being introduced to the public, few women were working as inventors or electrical engineers. Up until the 1950s (and even after that, to some extent), most women did not have access to the types of education or technical know-how gained from life experience that would have allowed them to work alongside men in laboratories such as Thomas Edison’s “Invention Factory.” One of the ways women did contribute, however, was in the design of the first electrical technologies. In their roles as housewives, for instance, middle-class women ran households, which required huge amounts of labor as well as management skills. They were also the ones who generally made decisions about what products and appliances to buy for the home and how things in the home would be used. This decision-making power meant that women as a group had a say in which electrical products succeeded and which failed. Many household appliances, for example, fell by the wayside—not because they didn’t work, but because housewives didn’t find them useful. By using their power as consumers, women played an indirect, but extremely important, role in shaping the history of electrical technology.

The early impact of electricity in the home occurred in the homes of the wealthy and the middle class. These homes got electricity first. Many wealthy women were highly educated and felt strongly that running a household should be like managing a small business. Just as real businesses were employing new technologies and managerial science to improve efficiency, many housewives at the time believed that the use of technology in the home would improve the efficiency of household tasks. Encouraged by women's magazines housewives strived to become "household engineers". For most people in the U.S. and Europe, however, those changes did not occur until the period between about 1930 and 1950, when governments took action to promote the provision of electricity to homes.

  However, the introduction of electric appliances in the home sometimes had unexpected results. It is true that electric clothes washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other appliances made housework more efficient. But often they had the effect of raising the minimum standard of household cleanliness. When once it had been enough to clean carpets once every season, women were now expected to keep them spotlessly clean all the time with vacuum cleaners. Ironically, the overall result of laborsaving electrical appliances was often more work for women. But even if the results were not always in their favor, women still wielded great power through their purchasing decisions.

Building the Electrical Industries Today women work in all sorts of occupations, but that was not always the case. In the early 20th century, married, middle-class women in the United States and Europe were usually expected to stay at home and be housewives. Unmarried or widowed women, however, frequently had to work to support themselves and their families. Many of them took work in factories. Industries such as electric lamp and electric motor manufacturing employed women in large numbers. However, women rarely worked alongside men. They were hired only for certain kinds of jobs, and in addition to being separated from men they were usually paid less as well. While factories offered women modest take-home pay, they failed to offer room for advancement. Few factories employed women as managers, as those higher-paying jobs were almost always reserved for men. However, there were important exceptions. Nora Blatch, a talented electrical engineer and wife of famous inventor Lee De Forest, became manager of De Forest’s electron-tube factory for a time in the 1920s, and there were a few others like her. For the most part, however, women acted as low-paid, hard-working workers on assembly lines. They played a crucial role in making—literally—modern technologies. As with early telephone operators, their names are hardly well-known, but the women who worked in the early electrical industry at Westinghouse or at General Electric making light bulbs were just as important in the electrical revolution as the inventors. War was also important in women’s move into industrial labor. During World Wars I and II, women moved into technical positions usually held by men such as wiring the electrical equipment on aircraft and ships. Unfortunately, they usually lost these jobs after the war when men returned to the workforce. In radio and television manufacturing, however, women predominated in the factories almost from the start and were able to hold onto those jobs. One reason was that women were virtually the only workers willing to accept the low wages paid in the electrical industry. Although union organizers such as Julia O'Connor tried to improve the positions of women workers, they remained some of the lowest-paid workers in the labor pool.

 

 

 

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