Lure Of Household “Gadgets” New Labour Saving Devices

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 187, 21 May 1938, Page 4

Lure Of Household “Gadgets” New Labour Saving Devices

JNVISIBLE forces that shell peas, wash clothes, beat eggs, mow lawns, mince meat, wash-up dishes and shave, comb and hair-cut you or get your bath ready —or even read your paper aloud, slice ■ off your cooked egg’s top, stir your teacup, or smoke for you—when household gadgets “go electric” inventors acknowledge no limit. The household gadget is as old as Eve, or, to be up-to-date, as old as Egypt, “Mespot” or the cave-woman. The inventor of the lip for pouring liquid from clay jars, or the bold spirit who first put a safety ledge around metal trays, was probably a male. Men inventors still devise most of the household gadgets which lure housewives like moths to a lamp to-day. A glance round a show like the Electrical and Radio Exhibition provides some strainge conclusions. Labour-saving gadgets begin as manual devices. You see them- in the big city chain stores in their earliest stages; improvements in compactness and efficiency soon follow. Then —presto, the gadget becomes popular, sells in thousands, and emerges from the chrysalis to become an electric device. That happened first with the eggbeater. The household fork was once used by millions of housewives for beating-up eggs to an accompaniment of perspiration and mild swearing. Then the familiar handle-turning egg-beater appeared like a good fairy, and became a mechanical best-seller overnight. Result —the electrical mixer that does the “beating” job, actually an emulsifier, of kitchens and milk-bars to-day. • Looking at it another way, laboursavers came first. Beating eggs can be mildly strenuous at times; but other household jobs call for actual muscle and slavery. Sweeping and dusting rooms, floors, clothes-wringing, of the “everlasting washing-up.” The hand-pushed carpet-sweeper earned its inventors a fortune. Then the electric cleaner stepped in. Expense barred it at first, but with competition, prices fell, T.P. and other ways of circumventing first cost took a hand, and it is the commonplace of the average wage-eamer’s house to-day. To-day one can also have electric clothes-washers that do the washing, wringing and drying-off in one but these are still in the “luxury” stage. Thousands of women will sigh enviously at sight of such gadgets, and go back to the home hand-wringer and washboard. First cost is high; but higher ironing-. Instead of an ironing blanket, fold sheets and towels to form a flat pad. On this iron all the small articles; when finished the sheets and towels will be found nicely pressed. Stove Lighter. An electric lighter for a gas cooker has a small battery inside that does the trick most efficiently. A strong jet of light appears when you press a button. The battery needs recharging about once it? six months. Adding the Gold Touch. If you are doing any re-furnishing of y, r horn.' but not buying new furniture the fashionable golden touch can be introduced in gold thread embroidery on covers, gold braid edgings and hangings of fabrics that have designs woven into them with gold-coloured artificial silk so glossy that the Pattern gleams with almost metallic brightness.

still is the cost of current in ordinary household bills. The “all-electric” house should be within reach of all. As it happens, it is—in lucky countries that have cheap electricity, like Scandinavia and some parts of the U.S.A. But in Australia, the household world awaits some cheap form of generating current, cheaper even than hydroelectric schemes, before electricity, as they say in the advertisements, “r.uns every home.” Meanwhile the smaller gadgets—the time-savers—are within the reach of most pockets, and electrical exhibitions display a tempting range. Pea-shellers, tinopeners, bean-slicers, onion-peelers, mincers, graters, toasters, re-cookers, shredders—they are all there, ready for the patience-vexing jobs that have worried the housewife for centuries. _ And here invention has outrun practicality in some cases—or should one rather say, appeals to the “born tired” spirit of modern life, with results that are often absurd. If the flood of “gadget” inventions patented is studied this becomes clear. / Believe it or not, there is an electrical pipe which not only vaporises the smoke continually, but forces and sucks the smoke in or out of the mouth of those too lazy to draw their own breath! And electrical razors. You can buy efficient'gadgets in Sydney which shave and apply lather in one. put there is also a weird electric robot which shaves and brushes teeth at the same time, for the lazy man who gets up too late as a habit. Most of these lazy jobs never go on the market, but remain provisional patents for all time. But some appeal to the lazy streak in mankind. There is the egg-top slicer. Serve the boiled egg in egg-cup clamp slicer, switch current, and it cuts off the egg-top if you are too tired to swing a knife. Or the electric tea-stirrer; it whips round the fluid in a teapot or a cup, if you are too fagged to make play with a spoon. Another type of electrical gadget is due to the increasing vogue the world over of the one-room flat. You can get a complete electric range, one-quarter ordinary size, with dwindled pots and pans to match, to cook for one in a midget flat. And you can get tinier miniature portable cookers for the simpler cooking jobs, that fold to a small cabinet, carried by one hand, these can be hid in Do It With Organdie. You can introduce a “feathery” suggestion to curtains, to covers, and so on, with ruffles of organdie and be right in the fashion. “Trimmings” by using the genuine article would be too costly for the average home because of the frequent renev/als necessary. Fluffy feather edgings to covers and embroidei’y, in which real plumage is appliqued to form patterns is delicate stuff. It needs tender handling and, in any case, has a short life. The use of organdie ruffles would make your bedroom look delightft.lly dainty. It would give the room *» new “dress.” Picture Mirrors. Another way of introducing floral decorations on your walls is seen in pic-ture-mirrors. These are plaques of mirror glass ornamented with bunches of flowers in relief and painted in their natural bright colours. The plaques, which arc to be had in both large and small sizes, are hung round the ■ walls like pictures.

a cupboard or even form a room ornament when not in use. From that to the miniature clothes washer built into the wall is only a step, and it is installed in many tiny European and American fiats. Then there is the ingenious combination gadget. The electric ironer, stand it upside down on its handle and it bej» comes a cooker. The electric hair-cutter, that brushes, massages and combs as it cuts. The card table, that later cooks supper when plugged in, and then folds up to a handsome fire-screen.

And, finally, the ingenious “household robot,” a folding cabinet that washes, irons, cooks, mashes-up, mixes drinks, minces, polishes silver, sharpens knives, chop meat —all in one, occupies less space than the average refrigerator, and in some cases has a radio attachment as well.

Where is all this refinement of worksaving leading? Much, of course, is forced on city-dwellers by flat life and the increasing shortage of domestic paid help. Householders, poor or wealthy, do a perpetually-increasing amount of their own work, and electricity simplifies and takes the fatigiie out of these jobs. Hand electricity, a bouquet for this easing of stress. But side by side with this development goes the appeal to lazy comfort, exemplified by such gadgets as window-pushers, remote control for opening doors, tea-stirrers, electric scissors-movers, telephone-answerers and the rest.

Electricity, beginning by releasing us from hard work, looks like pampering us as well.

But, after all, this may be only a passing phase due to excess ingenuity. Behind these “lazy” principles lie those which definitely benefit mankind. To give only one instance:

We laugh at the “lazy-man’s pipe,” yet file same principle gives us the “iron lung” (artificial respirator), which has saved so many paralysed children’s lives.