May 02 2014

How were clothes washed in ancient times?

Do you know when the first washing machine was invented? It turns out that even as far back as 1797. However, this kind of household appliances familiar to us now has not always been widely used. Laundry has always been considered very hard work. Are you wondering how people washed in different eras? Then read on

Ancient Egypt

Washing powders were used in ancient Egypt. The most common washerwoman's assistant was ordinary soda. In addition, potassium carbonate was obtained from charcoal, with which they also washed. This remedy has been popular in many countries for many centuries. And the ash and fat of animal soaps were made even before our era. In ancient Egypt, clothes were sometimes washed by rubbing the places of contamination with wax. It is believed that it was the Egyptians who discovered that the juice of certain plants, once in water, turns into foam and helps to wash stains.

Ancient Greece

Laundry in ancient Greece was akin to making wine. In the sense that it was also a ritual with all sorts of ceremonies. People chose places with clay soil, dug small holes there, into which they poured water. Then linen was thrown into the pit, on which the washerwoman stood with her feet and trampled until the desired result was obtained. After that, the laundry had only to be rinsed in clean water and dried.

Ancient Rome

It is believed that the first soap was invented by the Romans. The legend says that once fat was melted on a sacrificial fire, and then it started to rain and washed away this fat, along with the ashes, into the Tiber. People who were washing clothes on the banks of this river at that moment noticed that the fabric washes better. On Sapo Hill, archaeologists discovered the remains of a primitive soap made from ash and fat.

ancient india

In ancient India, laundry was considered a male occupation, women were not allowed to do this. By the way, in some areas this tradition is still honored. The Hindus took underwear in their hands and beat them with force against a huge boulder until the clothes were clean. This method of washing was very common on many continents.

Europe in the Middle Ages

In medieval Europe, laundresses were mostly women who worked from early morning until late at night, regardless of the weather. Usually their workplaces were near fountains or pools. If there was a river or sea in a city or village, then, naturally, they washed on the shore. There were laundry boats in the water. In Europe, linen was first boiled and then taken to the nearest body of water. There, the laundresses knelt on special wooden footbridges and rinsed their clothes. Such work was considered extremely difficult. In the 19th century, women arrested for prostitution were sentenced to corrective labor as a laundress.

Ancient Rus' and Russia

The Slavs first soaked linen in tubs or other capacious containers. Often bleaches of vegetable origin were added there: ash from sunflowers, a decoction of beans and potatoes, sour milk, sheep urine, pig manure. After a few hours, hot stones were thrown into the vats. Elderberry juice was used as soap.

Wealthy people gave their laundry to laundresses, poorer people did their own laundry. This process often took a whole day. By the way, not all of them were erased. Outerwear, dresses and camisoles were brushed over the steam. All children's things, underwear and bed linen were directly washed. Stains that could not be washed off by hand were smeared with kerosene or alcohol, and then rubbed and rinsed again.

In my school, in one of the classrooms, there was an ethnographic museum. There was a curious exhibit - a roll. Wooden plate in the form of a zigzag with a short handle. With the help of such a device in Rus' they washed for centuries. Usually the felt was made from aspen or linden, sometimes from birch.

Linen was first soaked in soapy water, and then laid on flat boards and beaten with a roll. The process was repeated several times.

Washing in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly a more laborious task than it is now. There was no central plumbing with hot water, no special detergents "for white and colored linen."

Washed mostly with lye (derived from hardwood ash) and/or urine (which is also an alkaline thing). Laundry was infrequent, once a month or so. Since the whole process is quite laborious, and on ordinary days, women already had enough worries. Therefore, a special day was allocated for washing. In order not to carry tons of water home for washing, women (which is logical) carried linen to the water. Not everywhere there were natural reservoirs, they washed in any place where there is water - near fountains, near wells. On this day, a lot of people gathered for washing, so, it seems to me, it was not boring.

Surviving to this day, a medieval public laundry in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.

Washed mostly only underwear, bed linen and children's things. In rich houses, of course, there was more washing - tablecloths, napkins, etc., but there it was done by a whole staff of servants. Formal clothes were most often not washed, but simply kept over the steam, and then brushed. The same applies to heavy clothing, woolen, lined with fur, and many hats.

In order to maintain a decent smell from washing to washing, linen and clothes were aired by hanging on the street or over smoking incense (for example, incense). This provided a rather pleasant aroma.

Laundry devices were also uncomplicated - they wound linen on a stick and beat it against stones; rubbed linen with stones or a ribbed board (rubel). They crushed, stinged, pounded dirty linen. They put it in huge barrels, filled it with urine and climbed inside - to trample on it with their feet. After that, the linen was poured with clean water and hot stones were thrown there, thereby bringing the water to a boil. And only then they rinsed and rinsed "in the river, stream, ocean."

Clothes were dried by hanging on clotheslines or simply laying them out on the grass. The canvas left in the sun for 40 days became perfectly white. Silk and woolen fabrics were bleached in a different way - the damp fabric was hung over sulfuric smoke. This, however, harmed the fibers ...

In general, the problem of bleaches and stain removers was quite acute. There were no less books with recipes for stain removers than culinary ones. Even lime was used to prepare alkaline solutions, which is quite dangerous. More gentle options for washing mixtures included wine yeast ash (the dried pomace of grapes left after fermentation), gentian roots, and even pea ash.

Clothes were sometimes dried stretched on pegs or even on voluminous forms, which made it possible to dry and smooth at the same time.

There are various ways to wash things without detergents.

The most famous way to wash without powder and soap is in mustard (not in sauce, but in grain powder!). Take 15 g of mustard per 1 liter of water, leave for 2-3 hours, drain the water from above, pour mustard again with hot water. Hot water is added to the drained water and washed. You need to wash 1-2 times, each time in fresh liquid. After that, each item is rinsed separately. It is impossible to pour mustard with water hotter than 40 degrees - it will brew and will not be effective.
To wash wool and silk from greasy stains, the following method is recommended: pour a glass of dry mustard with a small amount of water, grind to a liquid slurry, rub through gauze into a bucket and pour 10 liters of warm water. Wash things in this solution, change the infusion 2-3 times per wash.

The plant itself is mustard

mustard seeds

The second way is in the soap root (soap root), you can buy it in the market or in a pharmacy. Take 100 g of root per 2 kg of dry linen, break it into small pieces, pour 1 liter of boiling water and leave for a day, stirring several times. Then boil over low heat for an hour, filter through gauze and beat the foam. It should be divided into 2 parts and each item should be washed twice in different containers. The root remaining on the gauze can be soaked again, the solution will turn out a little weaker. The root is stored only in a dry form, the solution is used immediately.

The soapwort herself

soapwort root

Woolen and silk items can be washed in a decoction of white beans by boiling 1 kg in 5-6 liters of water (in a sealed container) and straining it. The broth can be diluted with hot water and, after whipping the foam, start washing.

White beans

Ash can also be used for washing. Wood ash (not coals!) Is poured with water and allowed to brew until the water becomes soapy. After that, the water is carefully drained (or the infusion is filtered through a cloth) and linen is boiled in this water.

Horse chestnuts are also suitable for washing. To do this, harvested chestnuts are peeled from the brown peel, the white kernels are dried and then crushed into powder. Then everything is simple - soak the laundry with this powder overnight and then boil it. In addition, chestnuts have a whitening effect.

It is worth recalling that rinsing in water with vinegar fixes the dye on the fabric and prevents it from shedding so quickly. In addition, it gives wool and silk shine, the fabric does not fade.

You can bleach clothes: chestnuts, soaking in sour milk for a couple of days, urine, lemon juice.

At the festival "Red Field-2012" we conducted an experiment on washing VERY dirty breeches that belonged to a young gentleman 6 years old. Washed off with ash. The ashes were poured onto a rag, tied up in a bag, placed together with a breeze in water and boiled. But there was not much ash, they did not boil for long either (the weather did not contribute to the duration of the process), so then they decided to wash it with soap (brewed from lye and fat). After all this was rinsed in a stream. The result, of course, is imperfect, but noticeable. Things to consider: 1) you need more ash, 2) you need to boil longer, 3) soak all the dirt overnight in an alkaline solution, and only then wash it. Here.

For the first part of the article, materials from the following sites were used:

stores.renstore.com/-strse-template/0905b/Page.bok

kimrendfeld.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/medieval-laundry/

www.oldandinteresting.com/history-of-laundry.aspx

Now even a child can handle washing - loading the washing machine, pressing a couple of buttons and hanging almost dry laundry is not difficult. But what did they do when not only hot water, but also soap was not really there?

Let me take you on a little tour of the past.

Some still know what a washboard is (“my grandmother has one in the village”), but few have seen it in action. But it appeared only at the beginning of the 19th century and was more used in cramped urban conditions, devoid of space and the close proximity of a lake, river or stream.
The predecessors of such a ribbed board were objects, the mere appearance of which plunges the uninitiated into a stupor. But - in order.

What was washed

A hundred years ago, housewives did not have to ask the price of detergents - there was no need. For washing, soap solutions were used, which were obtained at home. It was lye and soap root.

Lye, which gave its name to a whole class of chemical compounds, alkalis, was obtained from a solution of ash, which was supplied daily by the Russian furnace free of charge. The lye was also called “beech, butch”, and the washing process itself was called “buchenye”.

How and where was it washed

It was possible to wash with it in the following way - they put a bag with sifted ash in a tub of linen, poured it with water and threw red-hot “beech stones” there to make the water boil. But it was possible to get lye in the form of a solution.

To do this, the ash was mixed with water, insisted for several days and received a soapy solution to the touch - so concentrated that it had to be further diluted with water. Otherwise, clothes when washed with such a strong lye could wear out faster.

Another source of laundry detergent, the soapwort plant (or soap root) was crushed, soaked, filtered, and washed with the resulting solution, trying to use it all up, as it quickly deteriorated.

Never washed in a bath, it was considered a sin. Washing clothes could be in the house or near the bath, which means next to the pond. For washing, cast irons, clay pots, troughs, mortars, pestles, rollers were used ...

The hostess soaked the laundry, pouring it with lye, in a bucket, that is, putting a bucket of water in itself, cast iron, and put it in the oven. But one should not imagine a woman courageously pushing heavy cast iron into the mouth of the furnace - she was assisted in this by a tong and a roller.

If the grip is familiar to everyone, then the purpose of the rink should be explained - this is a special dumbbell-shaped wooden stand, along which the handle of the grip rolled a heavy container into the hot inside of the furnace. The result of the fluttering of linen is snow-white tablecloths and shirts made of homespun cloth.

VALEK served as another tool for washing. With this small wooden spatula, the washed linen was “rolled” or “riveted” on a stone or on a board on the shore. If neither the stupa, nor the trough, nor the tub usually differed in beauty, then the rolls could be decorated with intricate ornaments.

This was due to the fact that they were often presented to girls by boys as a gift, and then, in addition to the usual carving, the initials of the beloved and the date of the gift could appear on the surface of the roll. These rolls resembled stylized female figures: the thickening at the end of the handle served as the head, the working part of the roll served as the body, and the crosshair at the base served as arms.

It was a pity for the girl to even work with a beautiful carved roll, painted with bright paint ... In the National Museum there is a roll, which shows that the owner took care of it and did not let it work.

Any responsible housewife knows: washing is still half the battle, you still have to iron what caring hands have bleached.

How and how they ironed clothes in the old days

What appliances did our grandmothers and great-grandmothers have in their households to iron their laundry?
in the old days, not so much ironing as “rolling” linen. How? get acquainted:

Rubel and rolling pin

The rubel was a rectangular board with a handle: transverse rounded notches were cut out on the underside, and the upper, front side was often decorated with carvings.

In order to stroke, the hostess folded clothes, a tablecloth, a towel along, trying to give it the same width as that of the rolling pin. And they wrapped the rolling pin with them, forming a tight bundle. The rubel was placed on top and rolled forward from the edge of the table, softening and smoothing the linen fabric - rolled. And it was a mechanical way of ironing.

In the North, “digging” was a favorite carving technique, when the surface of an object was covered with a jagged pattern, but ornaments could simply be cut out with thin contour lines. And again, you can often see initials and dates on the rubles - sure signs that this is a gift.

The rink of linen required certain physical efforts from the woman, but one should not think that the arrival of a metal iron in village houses made the ironing process easier.

First irons

Firstly, such an iron in village life was an expensive and rare thing, and therefore often served as an indicator of well-being (like a samovar, for example). Secondly, the ironing technology was even more labor-intensive compared to rolling the linen with a rubel.

There were two main types of irons - tailoring and laundry, although both were in use in the houses. The tailor's iron was essentially a sharp-nosed piece of cast iron with a handle.

He was heated on fire and carefully taken with a potholder by the handle so as not to burn himself. Such irons were of various sizes - from very small ones, for ironing small wrinkles on clothes, to giants that only a man could lift.

Tailors, as a rule, were men, and they had to work with very dense heavy fabrics (I once had to sew such a cloth - I had to do it, blushing and puffing from the effort, and at the risk of breaking the needle). And the ironing tools were appropriate.

Laundry irons were heated in a different way: they were hollow inside and had a movable valve in the wide part of the body - a heavy cast-iron core heated on fire was inserted there.

Another type of iron used in everyday life is charcoal or wind irons. The upper part of the body of such an iron leaned back, and coals were laid inside.

The cooling coals of the hostess were inflated or heated by swinging the iron from side to side. Therefore, it was also important not to burn when ironing! The coal iron could be equipped with a pipe and looked more like an antediluvian steamer.

Imagining a hostess rocking a weighty cast-iron structure, you are convinced that our "grandmothers" had remarkable dexterity, and strength too. Naturally, the modern plastic-Teflon handsome man is many times lighter than his cast iron predecessor.

The lightest weighed 2.5 kilograms, medium-sized irons were within 4 kg - an impressive figure for several hours of ironing. Well, the heaviest one - a cast tailor's giant - made the steelyard grunt plaintively and show 12 kilograms ...

Agatha Christie said, "The best time to plan a book is when you're cooking." It's hard to disagree: even a modern woman has to spend so much time on routine homework that sometimes you want someone ... to make a victim of a detective story. And this is in the presence of cleaners / detergents and household appliances that facilitate the work of a housewife! But it was much harder for our great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers, although even in the distant past, a woman had devices to facilitate household work. This material is dedicated to "old gadgets" and no less old "life hacks".

1. What could be worse than washing, or a horse with a roller to help

“Again, things have accumulated in the laundry basket ...”, a modern woman states the fact doomedly. Whining from the good life? But after all, even 10 minutes to distribute dirty things for “loading” by color and recommended washing mode, and then another half an hour to “unload” and hang 20 pairs of socks and other linen trifles is precious time and effort, already tired of “multi-vector » woman's household chores. And how much time did our great-grandmothers spend doing laundry?

Valek - "bat" for linen

“The woman didn’t cook at all, but fussing with dirty shirts and trousers ...”, they used to say in Rus' .. Despite the use of “old household chemicals” (for example, lye - a caustic ash solution for soaking clothes), washing was incredibly time-consuming a process that required a minimum of endurance from a woman. The word "washerwoman", by the way, is from the verb "right"("pound, reap, crush, shove, wring out, squeeze out").

The main "gadget" of our great-grandmothers was the so-called "pralny(i.e. "washing") outrigger"(one of the dialect variants is "laundress") - a wooden flat bar for "rolling" and "beating" linen. Valek “squeezed out”, “knocked out” “waste products” from the fabric. This procedure, familiar to women of past centuries, was very energy-consuming and required a fair amount of physical strength. Fun fact: in the 19th century, women of easy virtue were forced to work in laundries as punishment.

Barrel: a step away from an activator-type washing machine

It is strange that this device has not gained wide popularity: the design for washing in the form of a barrel on a horizontal axis is almost one step away from the activator-type washing machine.

In soapy water, the laundry spun and was washed obviously better than the “beating” method. The only, but significant, disadvantage of the device is the need to manually set such a “drum” in motion.

The most intelligent and resourceful used animals as helpers: a donkey, for example, walked in circles with a barrel in which a soapy solution cleaned clothes without damaging the fabric. In the middle of the 19th century, a Californian gold digger came up with a device for washing a large batch of linen, which was set in motion by ten harnessed mules. True, the number of shirts that could be washed at a time (about a dozen or a half dozen) is not impressive: there are two shirts for each mule - this is somehow not serious.

The way of sailors: laziness = progress

What do long-distance sailors do without women? Wash your own clothes! And since no decent man will strain beyond the minimum need, the "sailor's" way of washing is very simple and reliable. There is no wife - there is water: dirty clothes (in some sources they add “soaped”, but something of the author of the site takes doubts about this stage) were thrown overboard on a rope and waited until the sea linen “fluffed up” in the abyss was cleaned of household pollution.

The rivermen were even more fortunate: after such a “wash” in fresh water, no additional manipulations were required. There was such a thing (mostly in dialects) as "dry"- this is washing without detergents, as well as a piece of clothing (most often a shirt) that does not require thorough washing.

2. Rubel: Ironing is the business of beefy women

About the heavy cast-iron iron with coals inside is told and retold. But before the advent of the iron, the ironing method was much more exotic - mechanical. The washed and dried thing was carefully wound on a special rolling pin, and then, put on a bundle rubel(he is also a “roller”, only ironing), "rolled" it on a flat hard surface with the strongest possible pressure. The ribbed surface of the rubel (a rectangular board with rounded notches on the working surface and a handle) kneaded the fabric that was hard after washing and smoothed out the “wrinkles”.

The rubel was often decorated with intricate designs and given as a gift. So, an enviable groom could well give a rubel to a marriageable beauty (cutting out the girl’s initials in addition to the pattern), and at the same time check the future mistress for “suitability”. "Decorative-utilitarian" variations of the rubel were often deliberately made to look like a female silhouette: the thickened end of the handle resembled the head, and the working part - the torso.

3. Whorl - a mixer of energetic great-grandmothers

With the help of this uncomplicated "gadget" it was possible to perfectly mix the products and even whip various mixtures. Name "whorl"- from the verb "to stir up", i.e. "interfere". A stick with 4-5 "horns" at the end - a prototype of a whisk and a mixer - did not require special skills to use: the whorl was vertically immersed in a container, and then the upper part was intensively twisted, squeezed between the palms. With a certain skill, the proteins could be beaten no worse than with a mixer.

By the way, it was very easy to make a whorl - nature itself gave the idea. A fragment of a thin pine or spruce trunk with a whorled arrangement (i.e., at the same height) of branches extending in different directions is an almost finished whorl. Lateral branches were shortened to 3-5 centimeters, the handle was polished so as not to injure the palms. And you can stir up pies!

4. Golik-derkach - "scrape" floors

Before the birth of the savior of grandmothers, Mr. Proper, they used to clean the floors "golik", or "derkach"- an old broom made of branches without leaves. Since in the old days the floors were unpainted (well, if they were at all!), the dirt gradually ate into the wood, and simply sweeping the litter was not enough. In such cases, the old golik was used as emery to clean the floor from stubborn dirt. The most easy way is to roll on the floor with your foot, having previously thrown gruss (coarse sand or fine gravel) under the golik-derkach.

5. Pumpkin family - supplier of dishware "brushes"

Nobody likes to wash containers with a narrow neck (jars, jugs, bottles, vases): even a special brush does not cope with 5+. But the great-grandmothers knew the “life hack” and did not “steam”: they put pumpkin / zucchini / cucumber leaves, etc. in a dirty container (that is, they used plants whose leaves are hard, with prickly “villi”), filled with water and intensively shaken up. The author of the site would hardly have believed in the effectiveness of such cleaning if, in front of his eyes, a 5-liter plastic bottle with walls darkened from water from a summer column had not been cleaned with zucchini leaves in 10 seconds.

So, not all old "gadgets" and "life hacks" are useless and harsh. But the article will try to convince housewives of the loyalty of the modern world.

On March 28, 1797, the first washing machine was patented. This type of household appliances has become an integral attribute of human life. But it was not always so. Laundry was once hard work. We will talk about how people tried to make their work easier and about the appearance of a washing machine

Ancient Egypt.

Even in ancient Egypt, various chemicals were used to clean clothes. So, soda, which was specially mined, served as a primitive “powder”. Potassium carbonate was also obtained from charcoal. This laundry detergent has been around for centuries. Even before our era, people adapted to make soap from the ashes and fat of animals. Clothes were also washed with wax. Even the roots, bark and fruits of plants were used. For example, it was found that soapwort juice turns into foam in water. This property of the plant determined its purpose in the everyday life of ancient people.

Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece had its own process of washing clothes. It was a whole ritual, similar to making wine. So, people dug small holes in the clay soil, poured water into them, then the washerwomen threw a bunch of clothes into them and trampled on the linen. After such a procedure, the linen was rinsed in clean water and dried on the seashore. By the way, this is no coincidence. The surf rubbed the clothes against the pebbles, which made them even cleaner.

Ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome was not accidentally called the center of European civilization. The Romans achieved great success in various fields. Their washing methods were also advanced. There is even a legend about how soap was obtained. According to her, people melted fat on a sacrificial fire, but it, along with wood ash, was washed away by rain into the Tiber River. Washing people on the shore noticed that clothes began to be washed better from this. The fact that the Romans really used such soap is evidenced by its remains found on the hill of Sapo. By the way, no one washed with such soap because of its rigidity. But for washing it was just right.

Ancient India.

Interestingly, in India, only men did laundry. And in some parts of the country, this tradition has survived to this day. Indian laundresses throughout the day beat the linen on huge boulders. This method of washing was quite common in different parts of the world.

Medieval Europe.

In Europe, almost a whole caste was formed - laundresses. Women worked from morning to evening in the open air in any weather. Places for washing were located near fountains or pools. In some regions, where there was a sea or a river nearby, they were located right on the shore. For them, peculiar laundries-boats were moored there. The washerwomen were never out of work. First, the linen was boiled, and then all this heavy wet burden was pulled out to the river. There, women knelt on wooden walkways and rinsed fabrics. It is curious that in the 19th century there was a punishment for prostitutes, they were sent to laundries for work, as it was considered very difficult.

How the sailors washed.

Women were not taken on board the ship, so the men had to cope on their own. They came up with the following: they threw a bunch of laundry on a rope overboard right on the move of the ship. The fast current washed the dirt from the clothes. Such a wash without detergents was also called "dry".

Ancient Rus'.

In Rus', linen was originally soaked in huge containers. Women had whitening products, of course, of plant origin. For example, ash from buckwheat straw or sunflowers, as well as decoctions of potatoes and beans, sour milk. Among the bleaches were urine, pig dung and lemon juice. Then hot stones were thrown into vats of linen. Elderberry, aloe juice served as soap.

Those housewives who could not hand over clothes to the laundresses arranged a laundry once a month. But then the process dragged on for a whole day. Not all garments were wet processed. Be sure to wash bedding, underwear and baby clothes. But outerwear - heavy women's dresses, men's camisoles - were kept over the steam and cleaned with a brush. Alcohol and kerosene served as stain removers.

In Rus', laundresses, as, indeed, in other countries, used a roller for washing. This is a wooden plate with a short handle. It is interesting that the valek has retained its shape for nine centuries. It was made from birch, linden, aspen. They used it like this: linen soaked in soapy water was laid on boards, and then beaten with a roller on the linen. And so several times.

Invention of Leonardo da Vinci.

The first model of a washing machine was depicted in his notes by the artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. He drew the design of a mechanical washing machine. However, he never built it. Meanwhile, until the profession of a laundress disappeared, many centuries passed.

The advent of the washing machine.

Only in the 18th century did they come up with a device that accelerated and simplified the washing process. This happened in 1797. The invention was patented by Nathaniel Briggs in the USA. The design of the first washing machine was a wooden box with a moving frame, which created the effect of cleaning the fabric. The spinning drum was invented by James King half a century later. Further achievements belong to Moore, who in 1856 improved the mechanism. Laundry with wooden balls was put into a container and filled with water. The frame inside the device caused the balls to roll over the laundry. Since that time, the boom of washing machines began, but all of them were united by one principle - they were manual. True, during the California Gold Rush, one entrepreneur came up with the idea of ​​replacing human labor with the labor of mules. They were turning the mechanism of the machine. And in 1861 they invented a mechanism for wringing clothes.

William Blackstone invented the first household washing machine in 1874. He gave one to his wife, and then he put the production of cars on stream. By the next year, there were about two thousand patents for such devices in America. But only in 1900 their mass production began. The pioneer was Carl Miele. He converted the churn and put the invention into circulation. The car was sold out.

Electric washing machine.

She reappeared in the US. The design remained the same, but the moving elements of the mechanism did not start the hands, but the motor. Soon the body of the machine became metal. It was patented in 1910. To start the electric motor, it was necessary to press the lever. However, the washing machine had a significant drawback. The washing process had to be monitored all the time, because if the fabric was wound around rotating parts, the motor could quickly burn out. A solution to the problem was soon proposed by John Miller. He came up with an activator that rotated water, not linen. Soon the mechanism received worldwide recognition. In the 30s, washing machines were equipped with timers and drain pumps, and in 1949 the first automatic washing machine was released. At the beginning of the 50s, machines receive a spin function. Now there are machines with horizontal and vertical loading. And in 1978 they came up with a washing machine powered by a microprocessor.