Jiffy top loading wood and metal washing machine

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

52413

Title

Jiffy top loading wood and metal washing machine with the lid open

Description

One Jiffy top loading wooden washing machine. The washing machine has a square 'drum' on four metal legs. There is a handle joined to the top of the machine above a square hatch. The front of the machine bears a yellow label that reads, 'JIFFY / Automatic / CLOTHES WASHER'. There is an oval Good Housekeeping sticker on the front of the machine.

Accession number

HH2060/94

Copyright

The City of Edinburgh Council Museums & Galleries

This washing machine has the promising model name "Jiffy Automatic Clothes Washer". By today's standards, having to fill the machine with clothes, top it up with steaming hot water, add the soap flakes and then turn the handle seems anything but automatic. But when this machine was sold, the alternative was doing everything entirely by hand in open buckets. This machine allowed the family laundry to be done relatively mess free. When you had finished the wash, a tap at the bottom allowed you to drain the water away.

This model must have been the height of domestic innovation in its day; the sticker at the front attests that the Jiffy washer has been "tested and approved" by the Good Housekeeping Institute!

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