Alva Josiah FISHER
1943 - You'd Be Surprised - Clean Clothes

One of the chief joys of modern civilization is to be able to take a good bath and to put on clean clothes. The American people are beginning to appreciate the fact now that their 7,000 commercial laundries are having difficulties because or labor, machinery, soap and other shortages.

"Laundry" comes from the same Latin root that gave us "lave" and literally means simpley a place where washing is done.

The commercial laundry is a comparatively new industry.

It is estimated that at the present time 12,000,000 American families depend upon commercial laundering servies for the washing, ironing, pressing and in many case even the repairing of their clohtes.

In Primitive Days

Primitive man washed his clothes in a running brook and hung them on the branches of a tree to dry.

Even as late as Queen Elizabeth's time the great familise of London sent their dirty linine in buck-baskets to be washed in the Thames.

The first important washing "machine" was the old-fashioned, back-breaking, corrugated wood, and later metal, washboard.

The first washing machine with a rotarey motion was patented in 1859 by Hamilton E. Smith, of Pittsburgh. The inventor continued to impred his machine and in 1863 he obtained patents on the first self-reverisble motion attachment to a washing machine.

Electric and gasoline washing machines, of course, came much later. The first complete self-contained electric washing machine was developed by Alva J. Fisher, who put it on the market in 1907.

Annual Production

The census of 1940 showed that about 1,500,000 power-operated household washing machines were being manufactured in the United States annually. Of these, 1,350,000 were electric machines and only 100,000 gasoline-engine driven.

Members of a Shakers colony at Canterbury, N.H., are still using a washing machine made more than a century ago. It ante-dates washing machines with a rotary motion but has been modernized by the addition of a motor and running water.

The Thor Washing Machine Comet Elec. Co. Eugene Daily Guard Eugene, Oregon Thursday, December
Advertisement / Article

Milwaukee Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 16, 1917
Advertisement / Article

A War Time Necessity for the Home Thor Electric Washing Machine The Crawfordsville Review Crawf
Advertisement / Article

Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 14, 1920
Advertisement / Article

The Spokesman Review, Spokane, Washington, November 4, 1931
Advertisement / Article

Obituary
Sarasota Herald-Tribune Saraota, Florida February 16, 1947

Time, patience running out as historic house faces demolition
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Sarasota, Florida, January 9, 1995