snip.

I like this bit that Virginia found--surely one of the first uses of comics to sell electricity via tales about washing machines. From a forthcoming episode of our podcast about the history of things you didn't even know had a history, this one on washing clothes. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

🎀 Whisper Transcript (en) ⏱ 110s

"The utilities are selling Washington. They're trying to get people to want electricity. And so they're saying, I don't need this. Right. So in fact, I actually found an ad from the Indianapolis Light and Heat Company from 1910. So this is a little bit later. And the ad is basically a comic strip. Most of the ad is a comic strip. And the comic strip shows the electricity salesman knocking on the door of a house and the woman opens the door and he's like, I'm here to tell you why you need electric lights and how your life can be so wonderful with electric lights. And she's like, go away. I'm busy doing the laundry. I don't have time to talk. I don't need electric lights and I'm busy. So he sneaks around the house and peers through the window, which is open of the room where she's actually at the wash tub. And then he says, you know, you can now get an electrical washing machine that will do all that work for you. If you install electricity, you could get an electric washing machine. It's not just lights. There's a panel where her husband has come home and the sales guy is still there. I don't know if that makes sense, but I guess it was late in the day. The husband comes home from work and she's like, honey, we have to get electricity so we can have this washing machine. And the final panel is the woman sitting in a rocking chair, reading a book surrounded by electrical gadgets. She's got an electric stove, an electric vacuum cleaner. She's got an electric toaster and she's got an electric light. There most prominently is the Thor washing machine. Literally the brand Thor. The brand Thor."

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π™²πš‘πšŠπš›πš•πšŽπšœ 𝙲. π™ΌπšŠπš—πš— @charlescmann.bsky.social Β· Jul 3, 05:10 PM

I like this bit that Virginia found--surely one of the first uses of comics to sell electricity via tales about washing machines. From a forthcoming episode of our podcast about the history of things you didn't even know had a history, this one on washing clothes. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...