From mangle to microwave : the mechanization of household work
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
From mangle to microwave : the mechanization of household work
Polity Press, 1988
Available at 20 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [203]-209
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Without the mechanization of the household, most women would still be bent over the kitchen sink, and yet we know extraordinarily little about the origins of the machines, which, in practical terms, have made liberation possible. This book gives an illustrated account of the inventions and misinventions that have helped or hindered workers in the home from the time of the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851 to the gadget-ridden households of today. Washing machines and irons, vacuum cleaners and other cleaning devices, sewing machines, domestic appliances and bathroom technology are all described in detail and illustrated from contemporary sources. In summing up the present-day domestic situation, Christina Hardyment resurrects some of the alternative theories of household management offered by such progressive thinkers as Mrs Havelock Ellis, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and suggests that we may have missed many of the opportunities that the domestic revolution has offered us. The work should appeal to general readers, especially feminist readers, students of social history and women's studies.
Table of Contents
- Homes without machines
- of pig-iron and parlourmaids
- the mechanical tailor
- laundry work
- house cleaning
- the bathroom
- from roasting spit to trained lightning
- machines in the kitchen
- kitchen gadgetry
- the domestic mystique
by "Nielsen BookData"