At the turn of the 20th century , middle and upper - halfway class technologists were obsessed with the “ servant problem , ” which you might know easily as the old adage : It ’s so grueling to find out effective assistance these days . These were the technical spring that would to make unreliable human assistants as disused as broken butter churns .
The “ servant problem ” was a popular complaint in charwoman ’s magazines , was studied inacademic journals , and was even cite by Upton Sinclair as fond inspiration for his efforts to start autopian residential district in New Jersey . More recently , it ’s a key element of countless a 1980s snobs - versus - slobs clowning movie where some rich person bewail the incompetency of their domesticated servant , or self - cognizant natural action movies where the supervillain utters it about his inept henchmen .
https://gizmodo.com/how-upton-sinclair-turned-the-jungle-into-a-failed-new-1015213490

In the early 20th C , though , the retainer trouble is reflect in the earnest complaint by halfway and upper center course of instruction people that their maids , butlers and cook were unreliable in some way . Sometimes ill concentrate around the inefficiency of their workers , while other time it was about the workers showing up for body of work at all .
It ’s significant to remember that these were n’t just the idle , isolated complaint of the one percent . The middle class in places like the United States and the UK had become accustomed to tinny labor — improbably cheap DoL , when you recall the history of theAmerican South . And having at least one domesticated servant around was consider a social average for those with the money to do so . As Agatha Christie recounts inher autobiography , many middle class menage did n’t see domesticated Labour Party as a luxury . It was simply a question of how many servant you could afford .
As David M. Katzman describes in his bookSeven Days a calendar week : Women and Domestic Service in Industrializing America , there were n’t enough workers to go around when the ranks of the halfway socio-economic class swell up .

The servant problem was a mediate - stratum one , since the upper class could always overlook the hire of whatever servants they needed . The enlargement of the middle class — attach to modernization , urbanization , and industrial enterprise in Western society — apparently pass off more apace than the growth of the servant pool , and complaints of a servant shortfall followed widespread hiring of servant . From the start , comment on handmaiden noted the general dearth , the inefficiency of those engage , and the unvarying overturn among household workers .
Enter the techno - utopian saviors . In many Western countries of the 1920s , electrical energy was quickly becoming stock in urban residential spirit . discoverer and technology fancier finally see an answer to the servant problem in the rise of the machine .
This enthusiasm for domesticated machine in the first two X of the 1900s is fairly apparent . But nowhere is it more marked ( at least until the postwar boom of the 1950s ) than during the rise of the middle class in the 1920s . The machines would catapult the middle class home into the future — without have got to depend on those terribly inefficient human being .

The March 1924 issue of Science and Invention clip feature a page of eight unlike innovations that had recently been exhibited in Paris , including the brake shoe buffer above . The result to the servant trouble — eventually replacing those undependable , modest paid humans with dependable recreational machine — was just over the apparent horizon . Soon , they assure , the domesticated retainer would be a relic . And the automatonlike handmaid of tomorrow would be little more than a thrust - push button off .
The handmaiden problem seems to be airless to the French than it is to the Americans . At least , that would appear to be the guinea pig after canvas the late Exhibition of Household Arts deem in Paris . Above is point one of the most clever devices that appear in the exhibition — a mechanically skillful shoe buffer . It is run by an electric motor and does the caper just as well as the shoeblack .
Television of Tomorrow
The first public demonstration of television receiver had n’t even happened yet when this representative for the TV of tomorrow move in Science and Invention . If a TV was indeed on display at the exposition in Paris , there ’s a skillful chance it could ’ve been one of thoseillusions used by department stores(using little more than a mirror or picture show projector ) to pull customers . As the clip notes , leaving the home will be a rare requirement to get entertainment in the future tense :
https://gizmodo.com/in-the-1920s-shoppers-got-punkd-by-fake-televisions-512621764
Of naturally , no home is concluded without its entertainment , and , thanks to the engineers , it is no longer necessary to buy tickets and fuss with taxi drivers to get it . Simply go to the radio set set , choose the type of amusement you desire , and the scientific genii renders it . The music issues forth from the loud speaker and the television of tomorrow will show us the range of a function of the performing artist .

Kitchen Gadgets
Liberating women from the ” drudgery of the kitchen ” was a common hope of technology at the turn of the 20th century . Who demand to hire a chef when you may let all these newfangled machines do the body of work for you ? Whether it was with an automatic white potato peeler , a mechanical coffee tree grinder , or an electric oven , the future was move to be so easy for women . Right ?
https://gizmodo.com/will-the-internet-of-things-make-our-lives-any-easier-508710992
That the housewife can take all the plodding out of kitchen work with the help of a few electric and mechanically skillful appliances is shown here . There is one for each of the little , plaguey job that fall to the day-by-day quite a little of the housekeeper . A ego - order galvanizing oven , a potato ecdysiast , substance chopper , air purifier and water carbonator are a few of the pieces of apparatus seen at the show .

The Telegraphone
By the 1920s the telephone number of Americans work “ white choker ” line of work had achieve near a quarter of the workforce . And these desk jockey were increasingly energise by all the gizmo that allowed them to do their jobs more efficiently . The telegraphone was the content - car of the future tense . Away from the bureau when an important guest stops by ? No need to worry about unreliable secretaries who can be so unreliable . Your visitors can simply press a push just outside your office staff door and record a message that you may listen to when you regress .
There are many commercial enterprise where the owner finds it necessary to pass a large part of his clip out of his office and where the number of callers does not warrant keeping an assistant to respond such calls . The telegraphone settles his problem . The visitor , on find the man out , simply push a button and speaks his subject matter into a gumshield .
Vacuum Cleaner of the Future
When it comes to electric contrivances for the plate , none held keen promise than the vacuum cleaner — a miracle political machine that you could n’t assist using with a smile on your face . At least if we ’re to think the example above .
The vacancy cleansing agent has number more or less into general use as a cleaner for the star sign . As prison term passes it is becoming more and more important as the different attachments find ready to hand uses . Two of its first cousins , however , an electrical floor scrubbing brush and waxer , are little known , though they fill a farseeing felt want . Two type of these pieces of setup are shown in the above illustration .
A Dinner Table That Doubles as a Kitchen
This serving mesa of tomorrow was examine as the perfect contraption for a family that was “ too diminished to want a maidservant ” and yet wanted the luxury of keeping dishes spicy right there at the board .
For the household that is too small to involve a maid , many of the useless steps that cause the wife so many pain in the neck at meal meter are circumvented by this uncomplicated arrangement . The serving table , shown above , is a kitchen in miniature . It has an electrical connection and contains an oven for keeping the dishes already fix , warn , a grillroom for cooking , an electric percolator , etc .
Electric Dishwasher
The electric dishwasher would n’t encroach upon American homes until after World War II , but the 1920s saw its fairish share of devices ( or at least promises of machine ) that would automate the after - dinner party manual dishwashing ritual .
Almost every woman of the house will idolize the discoverer of this electric dish washer . It is so hone that it is only necessary to stack all tabular array ware , including the silver grey , in a rack , set them into the machine and fudge three adjustments when — lo — they amount out dried and polished . There is no requisite to bet on the janitor for red-hot water ; the auto heat its own water .
The Mechanically Perfected Bed
need to sleep out on a porch in the wintertime ? Well , me neither . But apparently somebody did . And this representative predict that it would be all done automatically — complete with electrically heated blanket !
And here the sting is taken out of slumber out of doors in winter . After disrobing it is no longer necessary to walk across the cold storey to the sleeping porch and then to spend several chilling hour while the bed warms . Retire in a warm room , get into a ardent bottom , press the button , ah — the bottom pluck to a twosome of close down doorway , push them receptive and rolls out into the night .
Of course , some of these gadget come into common purpose — like television system , dishwasher , and vacuity cleaners — while others like the telegraphone would never really take off in their 1924 versions .

The servant trouble would surface again as a term in 1950s America , but by then proletarian ’s payoff had rise enough that it just was n’t hard-nosed for many middle class families to justify paying domestic undertaking . As we find growing income inequality in the United States — and the curtailment of reward that goes along with it — who knows if the upper middle class may find non - robotic handmaid quite stylish ( and affordable ) yet again . The rise of the so - called “ sharing economy ” ( which often amounts to a “ disruption ” of livable wages for working class people , be theytaxi driversorpersonal assistants ) is perhaps the best reading that it might .
https://gizmodo.com/sorry-uber-los-angeles-has-been-banning-ride-shares-fo-574851806
Then again , I presuppose we ’re just a good Siri and a ego - driving railcar away from realize those human - dependent relationships every bit as obsolete .

Images : Scanned from the March 1924 issue of Science and Invention magazine publisher
GadgetspaleofutureSharing economic system
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