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Technology: The Domestic Ideal
Despite the changes brought to society
between 1890 and 1940, running their households
was still the main business of the majority
of southern Dunedin women. It was a job
these women had been trained for from infancy
and one in which they would also instruct
their daughters.
Some women, however, were employed to carry
out domestic chores. By 1936 the number
of people employed in private domestic service
in New Zealand was more than 30,000. However,
hastened by the Second World War, the domestic
service industry entered a massive decline,
soon employing fewer than 10,000 people.
This decline coincided with a rise in the
use of electric and gas-powered appliances
that were soon being harnessed for all-manner
of household tasks from washing to cooking
and from cleaning the carpet to keeping
food fresh. Jan Boxshall writing in her
book Every Home Should Have One,
described domestic appliances as the 'new
servants'.
Despite new technology reducing the physical
effort involved in some household tasks,
it did not lead to a reduction in the domestic
workload or lead to greater freedom for
housewives. Women with electric washing
machines, for example, found they now washed
more often. Carpets were vacuumed each week
rather than taken out and beaten each spring.
A renewed emphasis on home and family saw
some women immersed even more in their duties
as home-makers.
By the 1956 Census, which provides us with
the first recorded details of appliance
ownership in New Zealand, over half the
households in the country owned the three
most popular household appliances - a gas
or electric stove, a refrigerator and a
washing machine. The change was rapid and
by the 1960s New Zealand had one of the
highest levels of ownership of electric
appliances in the world.
New
technologies made it easier for the modern
woman in her battle against dirt and standards
of domestic hygiene were rapidly improving.
As well as devices such as washing machines
and vacuum cleaners, more effective soaps
and detergents, coupled with easier access
to hot water, also contributed to rising
standards of cleanliness in the home. (Caversham
Project Archives)
Famous
soap brands like Lifebuoy and Palmolive
were born in the 1890s and a new generation
of equally famous cleansers such as Harpic
and Persil were developed in the 1920s.
However, many housewives still made their
own soap using fat scraps, lye (sodium hydroxide,
also called caustic soda) water and perfumed
oil. (Caversham Project Archives)
The
fight against disease could be brought into
the home using the latest methods and treatments.
Fumigation of domestic residences against
disease carrying insects and rodents became
popular as new chemical treatments (some
with long lasting residual problems unknown
at the time) were developed and marketed
commercially. (Caversham Project Archives)
'Cooking
becomes automatic and trouble-free. The
house-wife, unhurried and unworried, is
able to enjoy the meal she has prepared
- a meal, moreover, that is cooked to perfection
because it is cooked by electricity.'
Advertising campaigns for new electric appliances
emphasised traditional gender roles. They
urged men to buy the new devices that would
replace the hired help and aid their wives
in their homely duties. They urged women
to obtain appliances that were safe, simple,
clean and trouble-free and which would help
them in their task of bringing up contented,
healthy families. (Caversham Project Archives)
Household
cleanliness is emphasised in this cartoon
from the 1930s. Housewives were encouraged
to use 'modern' methods to ensure their
homes were 'spick and span'. Unfortunately,
maintaining your household at this standard
involved much more 'hoovering', washing,
cleaning and scrubbing than might have been
expected by the hard-working South Dunedin
housewife. (Caversham Project Archives)
[Next:
'Blue Monday']
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