14th Nov 2008
Prevent anemia, ugliness, and degenerate children!
Now that the Socialists have won the White House, what can we expect for our nation’s future? Dishwashers for everybody!
Allowing five to a family, there are fifteen million families in this country; and at least ten million of these live separately, the domestic drudge being either the wife or a wage slave. Now set aside the modern system of pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; and consider one single item, the washing of dishes. Surely it is moderate to say that the dishwashing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons—mostly women to do the dishwashing of the country. And note that [dishwashing] is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of which things the community has naturally to pay. And now consider that in each of my little free communities there would be a machine which would wash and dry the dishes, and do it, not merely to the eye and the touch, but scientifically—sterilizing them—and do it at a saving of all the drudgery and nine-tenths of the time!
– The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The rise of Bad Commies in USSR put an end to Dr. Schliemann’s vision of saving the world (or the USA, at least) from the evils of dishwashing. Luckily, the Capitalists would invent dishwashers anyway. (Or maybe they’re socialist dishwashers in a cunning disguise. That would explain the GRRRNNGTTTZZZ noise mine is making.)
The ad is from the 1940’s for Hotpoint Dishwasher, and thanks to Confessions of an Apron Queen for originally posting it.
Were those Sinclair’s own words as the narrator, or were they out of the mouth of one of his socialist heros?
One of the socialist heroes, a Dr. Schliemann. It’s one of the last people that Jurgis, once he’s been through hell and all his family are dead or miserable and then he finds Socialism (including this heavy thinker) and all is well.
Fascinating book, The Jungle.
I KNEW it! I KNEW dishwashing was the cause of all of society’s ills!
Now, if only there was a scientific study proving that doing the laundry has the same ill effects …!
“For Men who don’t look good in Kitchen Aprons?”
As if: all women look good in aprons, so no need to buy them dishwashers? Dishwashers are only necessary if men would otherwise have to do the dishes by hand? Men who don’t buy dishwashers risk feminization?
I also like, “And if you hate the whole messy, tiresome job — here’s your way out!” ’cause nobody would even consider making the job easier until they had to put up with it themselves.