The History of the Electric Dryer
Tossing wet clothes into a dryer and walking away seems second nature today, but our grandmothers and great-grandmothers happily watched their laundry work shrink from hanging everything up to using the automatic electric dryer machine just a couple generations ago. Does this Spark an idea?
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Early Machines
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In 19th century France, people used "ventilators," filling a metal drum with wet laundry and turning it as a fire below dried the clothes. Smoky clothes resulted, however. By 1892, American George T. Simpson patented a dryer using a clothes rack and a stove, instead of a fire, for drying, according to the Washing Machine Wizard website.
Electric Dryer Debuts
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Only the rich could afford the first electric dryers when they were introduced around 1915, but the machines became widely accessible in the late 1930s, when the Hamilton Manufacturing Co. began selling models similar to today's drum design. J. Ross Moore designed the dryer to keep his mother inside during the cold winters in North Dakota, but later he sold his plans to Hamilton, according to the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century website.
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Modern Changes
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Electric clothes dryers became even more accessible for average households in the 1940s, with more companies making and selling them. Innovations to come included front controls, timers, exhaust venting, capacity increases, moisture sensors, permanent press cycles, energy-saving features and electric starters on gas dryers, according to Washing Machine Wizard.
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References
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