5 min readThere are so many modern home essentials that we take for granted. But if you’ve ever had to deal with a power outage, you get a glimpse into what life would be like without these handy inventions.
In the age of AI and digital fatigue, it's also nice to remind ourselves of the positive changes technology has brought into our lives. Here's an overview of when a few of the most useful modern luxuries emerged and began appearing in American homes.
Ovens
We know humans have been baking bread for centuries, since Egyptian times, in fact. But according to the United Kingdom's National Gas Museum, London’s Reform Club became one of the first places to install gas cookers in 1841. Thanks to a gas cooker display at the Great Exhibition of 1851, they started becoming more mainstream in wealthy households, and more widely adopted in homes throughout the world in 1923 following the invention of the thermostat.
Electric ovens soon began competing with gas ovens. In 1896, William Hadaway, an American, obtained the first patent for an electric stove, and they also started to appear in more homes throughout the ’20s.
Microwaves
Before the microwave, heating up leftovers was always a labor-intensive process that rivaled cooking a new dish in the first place. And there's a good chance you know someone who remembers life without one.
American Percy L. Spencer is the person you can thank for both inventing the microwave in 1945 and making it accessible on a large scale. He acquired Amana Refrigeration in 1965 and sold microwaves through this popular household appliance brand by the thousands.
Refrigerators
Iceboxes and root cellars were once some of the only avenues for keeping perishable food cool, though they weren't always the most reliable. Household mechanical refrigeration units started making their way into American homes in 1910, thanks to General Electric's first model, called the Dumbbell. The Dumbbell's price point of $1,000 made it a luxury reserved for the wealthy. But thanks to the affordable Monitor Top model they introduced in 1927, refrigerators became a more common sight in American homes. This model also featured a steel exterior that looks similar to the refrigerators we know today.
Dishwashers
Who doesn't love a good piece of technology that can do your chores? Josephine Cochrane wasn't the first person to attempt to invent an automatic dishwasher, but she was the first to be successful at it. Cochrane was a socialite with quite a collection of fine china. She was tired of her favorite pieces getting broken from handwashing, so she decided to create a machine that could reliably and safely wash them. She presented her invention at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but it wasn't until the 1950s that its popularity really took off.
Vacuum Cleaners
While a few manual push vacuums hit the market in the 1860s, British engineer H. Cecil Booth received credit for inventing the electric vacuum cleaner in 1901. But it was American inventor James Murray Spangler who improved the machine's design and made it more mobile and lightweight with his 1908 patent. Eventually, his patent led to the Hoover Company.
Washing Machines
If you think doing laundry is a time-consuming endeavor today, just imagine how many hours the process would take before washing machines were invented. Alva J. Fisher created the first domestic electric washing machine in 1907 and officially got his patent in 1910. The Hurley Machine Company of Chicago sold the first few models under the name "Thor."[1] It featured an electric motor that would spin a wooden cylinder to tumble clothes through soapy water.
Dryers
The invention of the electric dryer didn't come long after the electric washing machine. A French inventor, M. Pochon, created one of the first models of a dryer in 1800. It featured a hand-cranked metal drum with perforated sides, but the heating source was an open flame.
American George Sampson improved the design by switching the heating source to a stove, and he patented his design in 1892. Electric dryers started hitting the market in 1915. In 1938, American company J. Ross Moore started producing them at an affordable price, making dryers a much more common sight in average households.
Electric Lights
Humphrey Davy, a British chemist, invented the first electric light, named the arc lamp, in 1809. These arc lamps filled the streets of Paris for a while with incandescent light, but their short life made them impractical. But in 1879, Thomas Edison created a longer-lasting incandescent lighting system with a carbon fiber filament.
Radios
The radio was the first widespread piece of wireless technology. It connected the world by allowing the spread of information across oceans in real time, and its invention was a multinational effort. German physicist Heinrich Hertz discovered how to transmit and receive radio waves in his laboratory in the 1880s. However, it was the Italian Guglielmo Marconi who received credit for building the first radio in 1895.
Televisions
Like most modern inventions, the creation of the TV was a collaborative effort in which one inventor's discoveries led to another. In 1926, Scottish engineer John Logie Baird publicly revealed the first mechanical television system with spinning discs. Then, in 1927, American Philo T. Farnsworth invented the first functional all-electronic television system. Farnsworth grew up on a farm in rural Utah and was only 21 at the time.
Desktop Computers
Early computers were quite large and took up the space of an entire room. But in 1965, Olivetti engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto and designer Mario Bellini developed Programma 101, the world's first desktop computer. Two brands that are still well-known today, Apple Computer and IBM, would later go on to make improvements and make these revolutionary machines more accessible.
Air Conditioning
The desire to have a cool home to retreat to on a sweltering hot day is apparently one of the oldest human desires. The earliest HVAC models date back to ancient civilizations, but the first modern electric air conditioner didn't come about until 1902. This is when American engineer Willis Haviland Carrier debuted his model. It showed off compact centrifugal compressors, which were a much more practical and safe alternative to the early AC units that relied on ammonia-based cooling fluids.
Coffee Machines
We can thank the Europeans for giving us the gift of both espresso machines and automatic drip makers. Francesco Illy (who also founded the instant coffee brand Illy) invented the first espresso machine with an electrical heating element and steam function in Italy in 1935. Next came the modern automatic drip machine, the Wigomat, which was invented in 1954 in Germany by Gottlob Widmann.
