Doc Brown without the DeLorean

August 20, 2024 1:06 AM

Even Lee’s washing machine collection began with his wife. As he often tells the story, the couple bought an RV when Lee retired in 1985, and they planned a road trip from Colorado to Maine. Somewhere in Iowa, they stopped at a farmer’s estate sale. There, among the implements and tools, Lee spied a 1907 Maytag Model 44. He loved the machine’s beauty and the mechanics of it. Over time, he began to love the idea that these machines changed women’s roles at home. Barbara didn’t object when Lee paid $100 for the contraption and loaded it into their ride. She didn’t complain much, either, when he kept stopping and buying up antique washers. “We bought 12 more all the way to Maine,” Lee says. “We came home with a mobile home and a new trailer filled with washing machines.” from The Charming, Eccentric, Blessed Life of Lee Maxwell [5280]
posted by chavenet (10 comments total)

“Sometimes, I wonder why anyone but me cares about this,” Lee says. I can’t tell if he’s being modest or if he’s asking an existential question
posted by HearHere at 2:07 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]

Wow, this was beautiful. Thank you.
posted by glaucon at 2:14 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]

The Model 44 is so cool that they made working toy models. Cf also the Model 43, a thing of beauty.

Some more early Maytag washers. Efficient? My grandparents were still using a 1920's model as late as the 1980s.
posted by BWA at 5:28 AM on August 20 [3 favorites]

The agitator with the hands (manicured, no less) is like something straight out of a surrealists’ art exhibit with its unintended social commentary…
posted by kinnakeet at 6:29 AM on August 20 [2 favorites]

Previously (with the linked Popular Mechanics archived here)
He also wrote the book, "Save Women's Lives: History of Washing Machines".
posted by ShooBoo at 7:27 AM on August 20 [2 favorites]

I made a comment in the recent household food budget thread that my grandmother was still using her wringer washer in 1968. BWA, your grandmother had it longer-but only because mine passed in the seventies. The washer was still on the back porch, along with the clothes poles. I wish I had it now. It would be great for washing horse/dog blankets and rugs.

My first washer was bought in 1975, and lasted 21 years--a Maytag workhorse, of course. Since then, I've had at least 4 other washers, usually Kenmores. We've either inherited them or bought them through yard sales or used appliance stores. They don't last because of plastic parts. I refuse to have some fancy-shmancy front-load POS with a computer, and the low-water washers are absolutely useless. I guess if you work in an office job with AC and never get dirty or sweat, it's fine. Mr. BH and I just finished moving a year's worth piled horse manure to spread on the neighbor's pasture in 97° heat. After I hosed off the tractor, you bet I used the heavy wash cycle then second rinsed those shirts and Levi's!
posted by BlueHorse at 12:54 PM on August 20 [2 favorites]

I used a lovely Apex wringer machine for years, thanks to my environmental interests (you can do a dozen loads on one sudsy tubful) and the pleasure of making a chore into a zen habit. To be fair, I still love laundromats, which are another kind of meditation through a task, but there was something so fulfilling to me about rolling the Apex up to the double utility sink in the basement, filling the wash tub up with hot water and swirling in my homemade laundry detergent (made out of ground up motel soaps, washing soda, and borax), then filling one of the utility basins with rinse water, and going at the process like a monk doing chores.

Load in the wash tub, then pivot the wringer to wring it out directly into the rinse water, start the next load (same soapy water, which the wringer sluiced back into the wash tub), give the rinse load a nice swirl with a plunger used solely for that task, then pivot the wringer to wring the rinsed clothes into a basket in the other basin of the utility sink.

I'd let one load run in the wash tub, one load soaking in the rinse water, and carry the basket out to my clothes tree in the backyard to happily shake out my clothes and clip them to the lines. I occasionally wished I had the rolling long lines my grandmother used, but the tree held a couple weeks worth of clothes, bedlinens, towels, and other stuff without reaching capacity. It was all very hands-on, but I had hours of bossanova music loaded up on the minidisc player clipped to my belt and I could do a mountain of laundry in a fraction of the time it took people with regular washers to sequentially go through them, and the combination of wringer washer and clothesline skipped the beating of more modern methods, so my clothes lasted forever.

My Baltimore grandmother, upon finding that I'd willingly gone out and bought a wringer washer, chuckled ruefully and said "Joe-B, I'd have lent you some money if you couldn't afford a better machine!" before showing me the faded mark on her arm where she'd gotten caught in her wringer, and it added to her understanding of me as her most unusual grandchild with his silly old washing machine. She taught me some important lessons about how to improve my process using the machine, and pointed out that I'd have enjoyed it less if I was doing the laundry for a household of six, which was a perfectly valid observation. Over the years, I encounter more women of a certain age who showed me their own wringer burns, but fortunately, my Apex was deluxe, and had a panic bar at the front that you could use to instantly disengage the wringer in a pinch (so to speak).

The machine gave me a lingering distaste for jeans, because they're an absolute dick to get through the wringer with those stupid hammer buttons, but I loved my Apex. Eventually, the gears in the gearbox under the tub disintegrated, at that was the end for the Apex, but I did keep the beautifully sculpted agitator and it's hanging on my wall like industrial art. In the internet era, I'd probably have been able to turn up the parts to keep it going, but alas—

To this day, though, laundry is one of my happy places, like cooking and washing dishes, and there's nothing quite as quietly rewarding as unclipping dry, line-stiff clothes and folding them up with that fantastic scent that only clothes on the line ever get.

Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood Carry Water
After Enlightenment, Chop Wood Carry Water

These days, my monastic life is receding in the rear view mirror, but I still check the classifieds now and then for another nice wringer washer to use again, just for fun.
posted by sonascope at 1:49 PM on August 20 [9 favorites]

My father was a collector. Stamps, not washing machines! but still: the range of what was collected was vast and varied: scott albums, first day covers, commemorative sheets, old envelopes. And when he died it was a definite problem for my mom (and to a lesser extent, me).

But having written that out I have realised that it may sound critical of this man and what he has done. Which, heck no! I salute his dedication and can only hope I manage to keep myself upright for an appreciable fraction of his storied life.
posted by hearthpig at 4:44 PM on August 20

I refuse to have some fancy-shmancy front-load POS with a computer

I regret letting my Gibson front load washer/dryer set (like this one but with the dryer, as well) go with my last house. Simple electronics, easy to maintain, good capacity, clean clothes and they were made in the USA. Fantastic machines.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:54 PM on August 20

Now this kind of post is why I keep coming here every day, although I stopped speaking much here, a decade or so ago.

Flagged as "fantastic".
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:18 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]