we work harder to pay for our labor saving devices than if we would have performed the labor.

During the 1980s research studies showed that we work harder to pay for our labor saving devices than if we would have performed the labor.

 

When electricity became available to the public many women believed that new appliances like vacuum cleaners and washing machines would, as GE, advertising promised, transform their houses from places of labor into places of ease. The first widely purchased appliance designed specifically for housework, the electric iron, seemed to fulfill this expectation. Women no longer had to heat a heavy wedge of cast iron over a hot stove and then drag the red-hot chunk of metal over a piece of clothing, stopping frequently to heat it. They just had to plug a lightweight appliance into the wall.

As it turned out, the electric iron was not quite the blessing it first appeared to be. By making ironing “easier” the new appliance ended up producing a change in the prevailing social expectations about clothing. To appear respectable, men’s and women’s blouses and trousers had to be more frequently and meticulously pressed than was considered necessary before. Wrinkles became a sign of sloth. Even children’s school clothes were expected to be neatly ironed. While women didn’t have to work as hard to do their ironing, they had to do more of it, more often, and with more precision.

As other electric appliances flooded the home through the first half of the century---washing machines, vacuum cleaners, sewing machines, toasters, coffee-makers, egg beaters, hair curlers, and somewhat later refrigerators, dishwashers, and clothe dryers--- similar change in social norms played out. Clothes had to be changed more frequently, rugs had to be cleaner, curls in hair had to be bouncier, meals had to be more elaborate and the household china had to be more plentiful and gleam more brightly. Tasks that once had been done every few months now had to be performed every few days. When rugs had had to be carried outside to be cleaned, the job was done only a couple of times of year. With a vacuum cleaner handy, it became a weekly or even daily ritual.

At the same time, the easing of the physical demands of housework meant that many women no longer felt justified in keeping servants or hiring day workers. They felt able and obligated to do everything themselves. House wives lost the helping hands that had been provided by their husbands and sons, who, now that the work was “easy,” no longer felt obliged to pitch in. In middle-class households, the labor saved by labor-saving devices was that not of the housewife but of her helpers.