By Loretta Lorance
 
1. This idea is derived from Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory of the survival of the fittest. In terms of household technology, the 'fittest' means the most aggressively and successfully promoted, not necessarily the best machine for a specific function.

2. David E. Nye, Electrifying America:Social Meanings of a New Technology, Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press, 1995, p. 271.

3. Ibid., pp. 259-77.

4.This is discussed by Witold Rybczynski, Home:A Short History of an Idea, New York:Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 149-152; and Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command:A Contribution to an Anonymous History, New York:W.W. Norton, 1969, pp. 548-595.

5. Characteristic of this tendency to label appliances as servants is the article Electric Servants Accomplish Many Tasks, Dun's International Review, Vol. 53, No. 5 (July 1929):31-34, +64.

6. Adrian Forty, Objects of Desire:Design and Society Since 1750, London:Thames and Hudson, 1986, p. 190.

7. Ibid., reproduction, p. 207.

8. Susan Strasser, Never Done:A History of American Housework, New York:Pantheon Books, 1982, reproduction, p. 77.

9. Forty,Objects of Desire, reproduction, p.191.

10. In Home, pp. 139-41, Rybczynski provides a sympathetic picture of the effort required to remove soot from light globes.

11. See R.G. McPhail, How Many Outlets? Modern Electric Equipment Demands More of Them as Well as Better Placing, Building Age, Vol. 51, No. 6 (June 1929):94, +96; M.S. Sloan, The Job Ahead:Adequate Wiring, More Appliances and Increased Use of Electrical Energy - Abstract 94, Electrical World, Vol. 94, No. 12 (September 21, 1929):561-562; and H.W. Ellis, Domestic Service:Socket Outlets are the Key to the Position, The Electrical Review, #2708 (October 18, 1929):636-7.

12. Dr. Ing. Adolph, ElektrizitŠt im Haushalt vor 50 Jahren und Heute, Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift, Vol. 50, No. 1 (January 3, 1929):6-7, p. 7.

13. Quoted in Linda Tschirhart Sanford and Mary Ellen Donovan, Women and Self-Esteem, Garden City, NY:Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984, pp. 154-5.

14. Wolfgang Friebe, Buildings of the World Exhibitions, Leipzig:Edition Leipzig, 1985, includes discussions of the major innovations of the fairs including when and in what ways electricity was exhibited. Friebe gives the 1878 Paris Exhibition as the birthplace of the upsurge in the art of illumination (p. 95) and the 1893 Columbia World's Fair in Chicago as the first time that 'universal applications' for electricity were found (p. 111).

15. There were three different kitchens displayed at this exposition. The electric kitchen was in the Electricity Building. (See S. Appelbaum, The Chicago World's Fair of 1893, NY:Dover, 1980, p. 47; S. Giedion, Mechanization, p.543, ill. p. 544; M. Holly, Samantha at the World's Fair, NY:Funk and Wagnells, 1893, pp. 560-1.) The Woman's Building presented the Corn/Model Kitchen that featured a gas stove. (See J.M. Weimann, The Fair Women, Chicago:Academy Chicago, 1981, pp. 459-63; illustration p. 461.) To demonstrate her scientific principles of food preparation, Ellen Swallow Richards set up the Rumsford Kitchen near the Liberal Arts Building. (Weimann, p. 462.)

16. For a history of the 'Ideal Home' exhibitions see Deborah S. Ryan,The Ideal Home Through The 20th Century: Daily Mail - Ideal Home Exhibition, London:Hazar Publishing, 1997.

17. Ibid., p. 47.

18. Caroline Davidson, A Woman's Work Is Never Done:A History of Housework in the British Isles 1650-1950, London:Chatto & Windus, 1982, reproduction, p. 41.

19. Sophia Malicki, Utility Women Help - Abstract, Electrical World, Vol. 91, No. 23 (June 9, 1928):1223-4.

20. There was at least one such course. See Isabell Davie, Women From Fifteen States Attend Pioneer Course in Electrical Equipment Economics at Iowa University, National Electric Light Association Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 4 (April 1927):239-40.

21. See Clara H. Zillessen, The Woman's Point of View on Selling Kilowatt-Hours, National Electric Light Association Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January 1931):59-61.

22. For example, William Fitzgerald, The Servantless House, Building Age, Vol. 48, No. 8 (August 1926):97, +104; and Mrs. J.D. Sherman, Driving Drudgery from the American Home, National Electric Light Association Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 7 (July 1927):441-3.

23. Adrian Forty, The Electric Home:A Case Study of the Domestic Revolution of the Inter-War Years, Milton Keynes:The Open University Press, 1975, p. 40. Similar thoughts are also expressed by Forty in Objects of Desire and Witold Rybczynski in Home. The importance of household appliances is discussed, but not quite given the same importance in Giedion, Mechanization and Reyner Banham, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, London:Architectural Press, 1969.

24. J. Baldwin, BuckyWorks:Buckminster Fuller's Ideas for Today, New York:John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996, p. 25.

25. Fuller is quoted in Carol Bird, Factory-Made Houses to Hang on Masts, Philadelphia Public Ledger (December 8, 1929):1.

26. See Baldwin, BuckyWorks, pp. 18-25; Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1980, pp. 325-7; J.J. Corn and B. Horrigan, Yesterday's Tomorrows:Past Visions of the American Future, Baltimore:The John Hopkins University Press, 1996, pp. 67-9; H. Ward Jandl, Yesterday's Houses of Tomorrow:Innovative American Houses, 1850 to 1950, Washington, D.C.:The Preservation Press, 1991, pp. 82-7.

27. James Ryan, Efficient Slaves of Intelligent Masters:ĘTake Proper Care of Electrical Appliances and They Will Give Faithful Service, National Safety News, October 1929, pp. 116, +126. Strangely absent from the list are stoves perhaps because they are often powered by gas. This is probably atavistic since gas stoves cook with a flame.

28. Strasser, Never Done, reproduction, p. 83.

29. Nye, Electrifying America, p. 173.

30. Wilma Cary, A Modern Revelation, Public Service Management, Vol. 45, No. 3 (September 1928):77-8.

31. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave, New York, Basic Books, 1983, pp. 99-101.