Envisioning women’s electric future

In 1942, electricity had reached eighty-one per cent of Americans but electric washing machine ownership was between forty and fifty per cent. Public laundries were still rare in the 1930s, so most women had to wash their clothing – and their family’s clothing - by hand. Eleanor Roosevelt recognised that women could not work five to six days a week and do the sheer amount of domestic labour expected of them. Her solution? Labour-saving, time-saving electrical appliances.