Here Comes The Housewife's Golden Age

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 219, 15 September 1945, Page 8

Here Comes The Housewife's Golden Age

Inventors Plan Many New Gadgets Special to the Auckland Star SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 12. THE average American housewife delights in being informed of the latest gadget to make house drudgery less of a tiresome bore, and with the coming of peace again some of the newspapers are regaling their readers with fantastic stories that it will be a delight for the American housewife to superintend her daily uuties in the home. From New York comes a write-up on the subject wherein it says: "There goes the war, and here comes the housewife's golden age. From now on, if she can wangle the price out of hubby's war savings, milady can keep house almost without turning a hand or lifting a finger. "That is a slight exaggeration. There still are a few things about the house that machines cannot do. In fact, the machines are not yet on the store shelves. But the really difficult, tasks of housework have been conquered by modern science. Machines to do them are proven facts, already on the production lines of manufacturers.

"It may take some time before stockpiles are built up enough so that one can just step into a store and buy, but a few items in most of the lines may well begin showing up in a matter of a few weeks now. When the manufacturers get into the swing, and get their distributors stocked, it is going to be almost fun for the kitcheneer to keep house.

"The electric stove will turn itself on at a predetermined hour in the morning and fry the bacon she left last night in the pan. The percolator will go to work by itself, make the coffee, and then shut off just enough to keep that odorous brew at a drinkable 190 degrees. Bread will feed down through the electric toaster all by itself, though thus far you still have to butter it yourself and lift it 1 to your own mouth.

"After breakfast just scrape leavings into the gai'bage disposal unit, which will chew them up and wash them into the sewer. Then stack the dishes in the sink. There they will wash and dry themselves. Perhaps in time, if you start with them young, you can train your china and glassware to roll to the dish closet and distribute themselves in orderly fashion on the shelves. "Monday morning—wash day—and no weather report is needed to tell you that it is going to be as hot as the hammers of Nippon. So what? You just toss a little soap powder into the automatic washer, which itself draws the exact amount of water it needs.

"You toss In some clothes and open the latest best-seller at page 648, where you left it at bedtime. In perhaps 20 minutes the clothes are washed, rinsed and three-quarters dried. Here comes a brief interruption, for unfortunately science has not quite achieved its goal of abolishing work completely.

"You must lay aside the book long enough' to move the clean, almost dry clothes about a yard into the electric drier that stands beside the washer and looks on the outside exactly like it. If you have been lazy or busy and let washing stack up on you, it may be necessary to let the machine change the water

and toss in another batch of laundry. Otherwise just go back to the book while the drier does its work. "There is still ironing to be done. There is not yet any machine that will iron dad's shirts automatically. You run through the flat work on a cool electric ironer that probably is built into the breakfast or utility table. For shirts, lingerie and such items, you use a featherweight iron that sprays upon the articles just enough steam to save your having to sprinkle them, and prevents them from getting shiny from ironing. "Milady — having done dishes, washed, ironed and eaten lunch by noon—can rest up from her arduous

labours under a sun lamp that will preserve that lovely golden tan picked up on the beach. She will go to bed under an electrically-heated blanket, thermostatically - controlled to maintain any desired temperature whatever happens to the thermometer, and made from wires that will not short-circuit even if a few should happen to break.

"That probably will be all she will need for warmth, no matter how many degrees below zero the air entering through a wide-open window may achieve. "These are not by any means all of the innovations that the electrical manufacturers of the nation are prepared to place upon the market in very short order. They are just a few of the more spectacular that actually are on the production line, at prices that already make them possible for tens of thousands. As mass production gets into swing it can be expected that prices will go down so that such dream appliances will become available to the millions."