Name/Title
Wringer Washing MachineEntry/Object ID
Object 2Description
For decades laundresses used a dolly, a stick with a handle at one end and wooden prongs at the other, to stir up clothes when washing them. In 1874 William Blackstone of Bluffton, Indiana made a present for his wife by inserting the dolly into a barrel through its lid and attaching a mechanical device to the handle to make it move back and forth, to agitate the clothes. It worked and so he went into business.
Open up the lid of this "High Speed Wizard" and you will see the dolly, as well as the ribbed walls and bottom of the barrel designed to give the machine greater cleaning power. Electric powered machines were developed in 1908. Shaw wasn't hooked up to OPALCO until 1949 thus this machine (patented 1909) still used "arm power".
The hand-operated mangle (patented 1898) mounted on the back of the machine boasts
"steel-ball bearings" presumably making it easier to put large loads through the wringer.