- Powered by steam engines, the first refrigerators were for commercial purposes.
Go to Household Items That Save Us Time and Money: Part One, if you haven’t read it yet. Because this is part two.
The sewing machine as a household item, was perfected in 1841 with 200 stiches per minute. A plant was built with eight machines turning out uniforms for the army. But Paris tailors stormed the plant at night and burned it down.
He started again but his second factory was again burnt down by an angry mob. He died in bitter poverty. How sad.
Elias Howe Jr. is the name we want to remember in the united states as the father of the sewing machine. He was a lame and sickly mechanic at a Boston cotton mill who was often bedridden. He watched his wife sewing at home.
His first version was one that mimicked his wife’s hand motions. But later he devised a lock stitch using two threads and a shuttle. $300 was too expensive for homes and the Boston sewing factory rejected it. He set sail for England but was swindled by a ruthless corset dealer.
Once returning to the US, he was penniless and his boss product was dying. He found sewing machines being sold like the one he had designed and sued manufacturers as he fought for his own patent. He won.
Isaac Singer was an actor turned inventor of household items. He created his patent of his model sewing machine in only 11 days. Introduced the treadle, a presser foot that kept the cloth firmly down and a cabinet to store it in. It was also expensive.
Singer promoted the machine as one of the best of the times. And by 1857, his company was selling 1000 sewing machines a day and making $1000 a day.
He found a way to make it affordable for the installment plan. Consumers could take it home for $5 and then had installment payments.
Until 1912, the American woman’s foot was still chained to the machine. In 1912, Hamilton Beach invented the home motor to run the machine, sharpen knives, polish silver, and operate a cake batter mixture.
Fun Fact: As the patent holder to the sewing machine, Elias Howe was paid $25 for each sewing machine manufactured. He earned over $2 million dollars before he died in 1867.
Refrigerator
Before it meant smoking meats, pickling vegetables and daily shopping. Otherwise you did without. Originally ice was a luxury but by 1799 it became a necessity for food preservation and sanitation.
The harvesting of ice, was usually harvested by farmers for storage for beets and dairy products. 
Ice was cut and shipped to the south. In the late 1800s, Maine was the main ice harvesting state and work was frantic during the winter. A total of 4000 men and 350 horses worked night and day. But the ice was really for commercial use only, and not considered one of the household items.
Demand for mechanical refrigeration grew as people moved further out from the cities. From 1830-1880, dozens of mechanical refrigerators were patented using the idea of air circulation for efficient cooling.
By the end of 1880, they were perfected. Powered by steam engines, the first refrigerators were for commercial purposes. They were huge and hazardous.
Systems had finally brought ice to our doorsteps. In 1830, iceboxes appeared in homes. In the summer, ice was delivered right to your door, six days a week and twice on Saturday. All you had to do was place a sign in your window for the amount you needed.
In the late 19th century, the nation was using ice like never before as household items. New York city and those communities alone consumed 1,000,500,000 tons of ice per year.
The first domestic refrigerators were compression machines using sulfur dioxide as refrigerant and they were expensive. By 1923, the cheapest model was $450 dollars when most people earned less then $2000 per year. Once every three months, it also needed to be serviced.
By 1923 every household in the US was about to be equipped with either gas or electric service. If the price was brought low enough, every household could be a potential customer for the refrigerator.
What’s your favorite fact about these household items? Do you want more articles about others?
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