Washing machines has become part of human life along with refrigerators, which is widely used among the households across the globe. During the early days people use to wash clothes in running waters followed by tanks and washhouses. The necessity of washing clothes daily involved more labour work and time consumption. To overcome the problem and for better clean and hygiene need has paved the way for the innovation of wasmachine.
First generation washing machine: During early age women use to wash the clothes near river, fountain and tank. They use to rub the clothes against rock or stone to remove dirt and even used sand to remove stains. Then the clothes were tuned before hitting them on the wooden plank to remove water. Later women adopted varieties of natural cleansers to remove dirt. During the initial days water used to be collected from well which is dirty and unhygienic which paves the way to infection where the washing places were absent. Later washing places were created and awareness regarding hygiene is spread among the people as small fox, typhoid and cholera was common disease destroying the lives those days.
Laundries which are covered places were designed especially for the washer woman to make the work easy for them. Laundries were considered as a sign of wealth factor and the level of Prosperity of the villages in those days were determined by the number of public washhouses present in the village. Washhouses also served the purpose of social role where the woman gather together once in a week and exchange local news among them and it also acted as a recreation spot for women where they use to sing to get rid of their tiredness. Laundries disappeared when running waters are introduced into the houses. Prototype washing machines are the initial machines innovated by the inspiration from washing woman. .
Modern washing machine: Drum washer appeared in 1905 which is operated with the help of hand. The electrical machines arrived in 1920 and only turning machine is electric and other controls remained same and done manually. Automatic wasmachine were introduced in 1930 with thermostats, timers and pressure switches. Washing machines these days are having the feasibility of connecting with Wi-Fi and it will help in delaying the washing program. Some machines are coming without disinfectants and some other brands will be equipped with touch screens soon.
Automatic Washing machines: Automatic washing machine will have the advantage of performing all the functions without any manual intervention. Even the automatic washing machine has remained as status symbols as they were not affordable at fewer prices till 1950. In automatic washing machine the programmer will start the operation and a pressure switch will be available and water supply will be done when the tank is full. The temperature of the machine will be controlled by the thermostat and the operation time duration will be determined by the timers. These machines were limited only to few house holds till 1950. After 1960 the manufacturers started advertising the product and in no time the washing machine have occupied a place in many households by 1980. New machines with microprocessors were introduced into the market which has the added benefit that it consumes less water and less electricity so that the environment can be saved. These days’ washing machines are offering water levels and washing cycles which are programmable during or before the washing.