What household appliances were available in the 1930’s?
Were any of the following available: bathtubs, showers, indoor flushing toilets sewing machines, washing machines, refrigerators irons, dishwashers, hairdryers, toasters, kettle/jugs, vacuum cleaners, central heating, dishwashers, dryers, telephone, radio, tv, and lamps/lighting.
Bathtubs, yes, showers, not too many, usually a hand held rubber hose with shower head that fit over the tub outlet.
Flush toilets, yes in most cities, not too much in rural areas.
Sewing machines, yes, mostly driven by foot pedal with electric starting to become popular, to those homes that had electric.
Washing machines, yes, some, but many homes till used the scrub board with galvanized tubs, one for washing and one for rinsing.
Electric refrigerators, yes, during the end of the thirties, but again, mostly ice boxes.
Vacuum cleaners, rare, until late thirties
Central heating, yep, but coal and wood fired some with only one floor register, gas and oil was getting more popular near the end of thirties, in areas that had gas, and those were for the ,most part conversion of coal furnaces to burn gas.
Radio yes, limited stations, lots of static, TV no, dishwasher? yep, us kids and my mother, no machines, dryers, yep, called :clothes lines" and telephones, yes, but party lines with many others on same circuit, where each had a different number of rings to identify the intended party.
Lamps and lighting, yes, but again, only in areas with electric.
A few of the houses I lived in had only gas lamps.
I speak of times starting in early thirties, and as the year went by, more and more things of the electrical nature became available.
When I got married, in 1947, we still used an ice box, and our first refrige was a used one from 1941.
Out first TV was also in 1952, used and not running, and for a few dollars and some experimenting, I had it running fine.
Toaster was two slice, manual, only toasted one side at a time, then flip it over for the other side.
Extra Stuff
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm
There was indoor plumbing, but not all people had such conveniences.
When I was little we had an outdoor toilet , then we got an indoor chemical toilet. ( oh was that awful!) like a outdoor toilet indoors. Smelled awful, and my poor father had to empty it all the time.
so many things we could not have at this time because of the war.
My mother had a Singer Sewing Machine and a lot of clothes wre made on that machine,no fancy stitches, just straight stitching.
We had a toaster that you had to catch before your toast burned. and had to turn your bread to toast both sides and be your own timer.It still was better then putting bread under broiler, to toast.
We had wringer washing machines, which I loved. ( most did not). I had a double wringer washing machine when I married, the draw back was having to hang the clothes outside. when My second child was born, I got my first automatic washer and dryer. ( about 1959). We had irons but they were very heavy and back then ever thing had to be ironed, they also had Mangles , It ironed clothes on a board they have them in cleaners to this day.
They had hairdryers but they were expensive and were not the hand held kind, that is why the women use to use the excuse , they couldn’t go out because they had to wash their hair. A whole night to do so!
Yes, we had vacuum cleaners, suction wasn’t as good as todays vacumes and most were very heavy to push. No central heating, Furnaces if you were lucky , stoves in the middle of a room . You roasted if you were by the stove and froze if you got more then 2 feet away from it. You got as close as you could to the sotve when you changed clothes and be careful if you bent over and touched your butt on the stove! We had a telephone that was a party line with 4 other familys on it at first. you had to listen to the ring, to identify your calls. it was fun listening in to them on the line. Of course they like to listen to yours also. We had a radio, and I LOVED all those old radio shows. Miss them to this day!
We got our first TV when I was 12 years old. Not a lot on. Would watch kids shows right after school , then about 6:00 the eve shows came on till news at 10:00 then it went off the air tilll the next day. It wasn’t long till they started putting old movies on T.V right after the news , when it was over so was TV for the day.Yes we had lamps , bulbs were not that stong but we could read and sew or do craft work so thats all we cared about.
I am afraid i don’t know what you mean by Kettles /jugs?
Roe
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm
Two hands and two knees!
gale
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm
all I can add to the above is about the late 1940’s and i remember we had a lot of throw rugs or rugs enough to fit under the dining room table and those were cleaned by hanging them on the clothesline and beating them with a rug beater. Our phone number back then was 2534-W and we talked with the operator to put a call thru. Mom did use the washboard to scrub clothes (like neckbands and cuffs) with a bar of brown soap before washing the garment. I had flouncy ruffled see thru white curtains in my bedroom and mom would wash them and then put them on what looked like a standing loom and press them onto what looked like nails sticking out. We used to have a roller iron to iron things like towels, sheets and pillowcases and pajamas (everything that was washed back then was also ironed even underwear). We had a gas stove, gas water heater and had to light the pilot light every time we wanted to use it. We had a coal man deliver coal every so often and when we got cold we’d go to the basement, put on the coal gloves, stoke the furnace, throw in a few large lumps of coal or a shovel’s worth and change the flue to start up the heat in the upstairs, then on the days that the garbage man would come mom would clean out the coal furnace of cinders and take a full garbage can of the cinders/slag to the curb for pickup. At grandma’s we’d wash up in a bowl full of water. There was no running water at grandma’s so she would pour water into a container in the kitchen sink and we’d do dishes and then when done we’d carry that soapy water outdoors and water the plants with it. My grandparents had an outhouse. Also an outdoor smoker house to smoke ham and sausage to sell for Christmas. Grandma had a tredle sewing machine, and her house was full of doilies (3 were on each chair, maybe 4 or 5 on a sofa and one on each piece of furniture) and one long one on each door that had glass on it. At home we had a heating lamp and it was used for aches and pains, for indoor tanning, and for drying our hair. Back then we had serving bowls that we’d pass around the table. We had a metal egg beater that you turned in a circular motion to make it work. We had a grinder mom would attach to an old chair to grind nuts for Christmas cookies. I understand that same grinder would be or could be used to make sausage with. We had a long piece of metal that we used as a knife and scissors sharpener. Buttons, all kinds, colors and sizes, and made out of different things were popular back then. We had home made throw rugs. We had a flour grinder (a large thing attached inside of one of the kitchen cupboards). Mom had a huge soup pot that she used for everything from putting water in there and washing the floors with that water, to washing underwear in it, to cooking a stew for a meal. The strong lye soap that was used killed any bacteria that was on there. Mom used to "season" her iron pans before using and would never wash that pan because she said it would make the pan rust (you just wipe stuff off of it with a dry cloth). So it kept its flavors and the food made in it tasted great. We used to have clothes hampers.
sophieb
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm
yes they were there but who could afford them, this is during the worst depression ever. My mother did her washing in a zinc bath ,heating the water in a copper heated by a fire,she had a mangle to take the surplus water before drying the clothes on a line in the back garden. We had a radio I suggest you se the film The Grapes of Wrath to see how people lived,we lived in London,whereas the family lived in Oklahoma but poverty was universal..If both our governments are not careful those days will come back.
robin
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm
No television, dishwashers, home hair dryer, central heating and some people had no vacuum cleaners.
The rest were quite commonplace unless you were very poor.
Flower
12 Oct 11 at 8:01 pm