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THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON DAILY LIFE

Electricity and Water

During the 1920s the spread of technology transformed the way average Americans lived their daily lives. In 1920 only 34.7 percent of American dwellings had electricity; by 1930 67.9 percent had electric power. In the cities the growth was even more dramatic: 84.8 percent of all urban homes were wired for electricity by 1930, compared to only 47.4 percent a decade earlier. Hot and cold running water, which had been available only to the upper classes at the turn of the century, also became common, particularly in urban areas. In 1929 the President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership reported that 71 percent of urban homes had indoor bathrooms. A 1926 survey of the residents of Zanesville, Ohio, revealed that 91 percent of the city's houses were equipped with running water and that 61 percent had complete plumbing systems. This increased availability of electricity and water made possible the proliferation of appliances and conveniences that changed daily life in American society.

The Middle Classes

At the turn of the century, families with a comfortable income depended on servants, hired labor, and delivery men to support their day-to-day lives. The new technology available in the 1920s—combined with a diminishing supply of people willing to work as servants—caused more and more middle-class fami-lies to do their own housework. By 1926 80 percent of American homes with incomes more than $3,000 had vacuum cleaners and washing machines. These devices reduced the heavy labor involved in housework and made the tasks more acceptable to middle- and upper-class women. Electric washing machines in the 1920s had no automatic cycles and did not spin clothes semidry, but they eliminated the hauling of water and manual wringing that once made clothes-washing such a difficult chore. Early vacuum cleaners, though heavy and clumsy, cleaned more thoroughly than brooms and ended the grueling semiannual removal of carpets and rugs for cleaning. Electric refrigerators allowed families to store perishable food for longer periods and, with the help of the automobile, eliminated the need for regular delivery service by retailers. However, the number of hours housewives devoted to maintaining their homes did not change: the average mother in the 1920s spent fifty to sixty hours a week on domestic tasks, roughly the same as she had at the turn of the century. Rather than supervising maids and ordering food deliveries, housewives were operating appliances and going to stores.

The Lower Classes

The fabled economic prosperity of the decade was not enjoyed by the majority of Americans. Though industrial production boomed and wages for skilled and unskilled workers rose, unpredictable lay-offs and the absence of sick leave and worker's compensation made employment and a steady income uncertain. A 1929 Brookings Institution study reported that 59 percent of the nation's families still lived below a minimal level of "health and decency." Labor-saving electric appliances such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines remained too expensive for most lower-class families. A new washing machine in the 1920s cost between $60 and $200, and the average factory worker earned about $100 a month. The technology that did change working-class families' lives was the expansion of basic utility services such as electricity, water, and natural gas. Electricity brought better lighting and reduced the danger of fires caused by kerosene lamps and gas lights. Indoor plumbing ended the discomfort of using outhouses in cold months and reduced the danger of typhoid fever in the summers. Gas ranges were cooler in the summer than continuously burning stoves and did not fill houses with coal dust and kerosene fumes. The benefits of technology were compounded by new public-health measures such as pure food regulations, water and sewage treatment, and garbage-collection services. The primary influence of technology on the lower classes was that it raised their standard of living in general: infant morality rates fell, epidemic diseases were drastically reduced, and diets im-proved. Although the income and daily workload of poor people saw little improvement, they lived healthier lives.

Cleanliness and Social Divisions

One of the side effects of expanding access to technology was the narrowing of the social gap between rich and poor. Before World War I, the circumstance that most lower-class homes had no hot and cold running water made bathing and washing clothes extremely difficult. As a result, most working-class people bathed no more than once a week, wore a shirt for weeks without washing it, and seldom changed their underclothes. Cleanliness was a condition strictly for the upper classes. As a natural result of their low hygiene standards, the poor looked and smelled repulsive to the rich. Cleanliness was important for getting a good job because members of the comfortable classes often interacted with the poor only when seeking to hire employees. When running water became available to most lower-income families, bathing and washing clothes became easier, and cleanliness increased. Immigrants and poor people looking for jobs as clerks, waiters, shop-girls, or servants were encouraged to learn habits of good hygiene. Although the economic prosperity of the decade was enjoyed primarily by the rich, access to technology helped lessen the most basic physical distinctions between the classes—cleanliness, dress, and health.

Rural Areas

The spread of technology in the 1920s remained primarily an urban phenomenon. Only 10 percent of the nation's farm families had electric power in 1930 (compared to the 85 percent of the families in cities and towns). Indoor plumbing was also slow to reach rural areas. By 1930, 33 percent of rural homes (compared to 71 percent of urban homes) had running water. Not until the 1930s and 1940s would utility service reach rural areas on a large scale.