c. 1930s Sommer & Maca Glass Grinder

 This glass grinder was made by Sommer & Maca of Chicago, Illinois. Beginning perhaps in the 1920s, Sommer & Maca made a variety of machines for cutting, grinding, and polishing glass. This glass grinder may have been used to prepare windows for automobiles.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Ice Plow

When we talk about harvesting, you might not imagine we would include ice among the crops being harvested.  Ice, however, was an important resource for farmers and others on the North American prairie who wished to keep meats and other foodstuffs from spoiling too quickly during the warmer months of the year.  A farmer might harvest his own ice from a nearby lake or river during the harsh winter months, or he might purchase ice from a company established to cut and sell it.  By obtaining ice and storing it in an underground room insulated with sawdust and provided with a drainage system to let out the water, a farmer had ice to keep his meats, dairy products, fruits and vegetables fresher longer.  If a farmer could store large amounts in the underground room, he might remove smaller pieces over time to refrigerate the family’s food for a day or two in a smaller ice box.  Depending on how much space there was and how warm the storeroom got, the family might have ice for several weeks or even months.

Once the ice in the storeroom melted, the farmer and his family might be able to obtain ice that had been stored by companies for future sales or by companies who imported ice from higher elevations or from colder regions in Canada and Alaska.  By providing their frozen product to the larger society, ice harvesting companies also allowed meat packing plants to keep their meats cold, fishermen to bring in larger hauls from lakes and oceans, shipping companies to transport certain cold and frozen foods across longer distances, and breweries to brew beer all year round.  Providing ice to families and businesses alike long before the widespread availability of artificial ice makers and refrigerators, ice harvesters played an important role in rural and urban life on the North American prairie throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth century.

Although there were many things to consider when harvesting ice, including water currents, we will briefly discuss the process in simple terms here in order to give a general impression of what it was like.¹  To begin with, the ice harvesting process often involved the use of a variety of tools, including an ice marker or an ice plow like the one seen here at Stuhr Museum, an ice saw or ice chisel or fork bar, long and short ice hooks, grapple jacks, ice tongs, hoisting tongs, drag tongs, and edging tongs.  Depending on the size of the harvest, anywhere from a couple dozen to a couple hundred people may be involved in the process.  After one worker measured to make sure the ice was thick enough to hold its shape while being moved around, other workers used an ice marker and/or an ice plow pulled by a horse to mark off a grid on the surface.²  After marking and scoring the ice to delineate the separate pieces, called ice cakes, workers used ice saws, ice chisels, and fork bars to break the ice cakes apart.  The workers then used long and short ice hooks to guide the ice to a ramp at the shoreline.  Once the cakes were at the base of the ramp, workers used a jack grapple hooked by rope to one or two horses to pull the cakes up to a platform.

On the platform, another worker used ice tongs to place the ice into a wagon to be hauled to the storage building.  Horses towed the wagon to storage where another horse might pull the ice up to a second floor with hoisting tongs and a pulley.  Inside the building, workers used drag tongs and edging tongs to guide the ice into their storage places.  If you wish to see footage of a similar ice harvesting process at Pocono Manor, Pennsylvania, filmed in 1919, click or touch here.  Although it played an important role in the ice harvesting process somewhere, Stuhr Museum’s jack grapple unfortunately has no markings to show us who made it, and we have no record of where it was used.³

Notes

¹ For a much more detailed description of the ice harvesting process, including images of an even wider variety of tools which could have been used, see Theron L. Hiles, The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship, and Use Ice. A Complete Practical Treatise for Farmers, Dairymen, Ice Dealers, Produce Shippers, Meat Packers, Cold Storers, and All Interested in Ice Houses, Cold Storage and the Handling or Use of Ice in Any Way (New York: Orange Judd Company, 1893), pp. 14-42.

² According to Hiles, The Ice Crop, p. 21, a general desired thickness was fourteen inches, although expectations varied depending on the region.  For example, parts of Ohio tended to harvest ice about six inches thick, areas around Chicago and Omaha eight inches thick, parts of Maine sixteen inches, parts of Minnesota twenty inches, Lake Superior off the Wisconsin coast thirty inches, and the area around Winnipeg, Manitoba, forty inches.  Hiles adds that the 40-inch thick ice can keep for the entire year.

³ In south central Nebraska, Crystal Lake, south of Hastings, was created by the Crystal Ice Company in 1893 for ice harvesting.  The Illinois State Museum has information on harvesting ice, especially on the Illinois River, which you can access here.  A wonderful online source (in pdf format) for ice harvesting in the 1800s is provided by the Carriage Museum of America in Lexington, Kentucky, which you can access here.

Late 19th to Early 20th Century "Grasshopper" Sod Plow

 This plow was used to dig up sod for sod houses and other sod buildings. From the 1880s to the early 1900s, many settlers on the North American prairie took advantage of the prairie sod that contained the densely packed roots of several grasses to construct solid buildings for themselves and for their animals. By using “grasshopper” – sometimes called “breaking” – plows, settlers could dig up long strips of sod about 12 to 14 inches wide and 3 or 4 inches deep. Cutting up those strips into shorter sections, the settlers would stack their sod root-side up to build up the walls of the sod buildings.
 By stacking the sod in two rows side by side, and by stacking it both lengthwise and crosswise, the settlers could make very sturdy structures that could protect their inhabitants from the elements. By using wood posts, settlers would add door frames to allow for easy access to the buildings, and possibly window frames to allow for more sunlight as well as fresh air. Those settlers would also use wood to build the roofs.
 Each sod house was custom made to the conditions of the soil and the environment, and each varied with regard to quality of construction. Some sod houses may have lasted a year or two before being torn down. Others stood for several decades. One sod house in particular, the only known two-story sod house built in Nebraska, was erected in 1884 or 1885 by Isadore Haumont. It was demolished in 1967.

Notes

You can read more about “grasshopper” plows and the construction of sod houses, including Isadore Haumont’s two-story house, on the Nebraska Studies page here.

Early 20th Century Bi-treadle Grindstone

 Farmers often had a wide variety of tools with sharp edges to perform several tasks around the farm. These tools might have included (but were not limited to) knives, hoes, sickle bars, sickles, scythes, grain cradle blades, discs, and hatchets. Using these tools inevitably meant needing to sharpen them. That is where grindstones like this one came in handy. By pushing down on the treadles (or pedals), a person could cause the grindstone to spin around. By pressing a dull blade against the stone, that person could remove nicks and smooth and sharpen a blade’s surface for future use. A good, ready-to-use grindstone cost about $3.50 in 1909.

Early 20th Century Sickle Bar Sharpener

 This bi-pedal sharpener was used to sharpen the sickle bars (cutting blades) found on mowers, reapers, and binders. As you look around Stuhr Museum’s exhibit, you can see a mower, three reapers, and two binders that have sickle bars. In order to use this device, a person would place the sickle bar into the clamp located behind the emery wheel and in front of the seat. The clamp opens and closes, holding the sickle bar in place during sharpening. After placing the part of the sickle bar needing sharpened into the clamp, the person would press it against the emery wheel while moving the pedals like a bicycle. The pedals moved a series of gears which in turn spun the emery wheel.

Early 20th Century Murray Iron Works Monarch Disc Sharpener

Known for its Howard and Corliss engines, Murray Iron Works of Burlington, Iowa manufactured this disc sharpener sometime in the early twentieth century, possibly as early as 1906.¹  Using sturdy materials and complicated mechanization, manufacturers like Murray Iron Works made disc sharpeners especially for blacksmiths and other business entrepreneurs who would sharpen discs for a charge.  Revealing the entrepreneurial spirit of some individuals on the prairie, a blacksmith in central Canada described in a 1912 magazine letter his acquisition of a disc sharpener which he would use to increase his income.  He noted that his sharpener was the first in the area and that he could probably charge at least 25 cents to sharpen a disc.²  Farmers who understood the long-term savings in getting their discs sharpened sought out blacksmiths like the one in Canada who possessed a sharpener like the Monarch.

Murray Iron Works was incorporated in Burlington, Iowa in 1870, its iron and brass foundry having been established in 1866.  Over the last few decades of the nineteenth century, the company added a machine shop, boiler shop, and engine works.  After 1870, the company, under the leadership of Colonel George H. Higbee, began manufacturing nearly all of the iron castings for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, as well as castings for bridges, buildings, and other structures in the area.  By 1882, the factory was using a 25 and a 30 horsepower steam engine to power all of its machines, making a wide variety of products, including the very popular Howard Automatic Cut-Off Engine.³  At that time, the company’s plant covered two-and-a-half acres, including a 12,500 square foot foundry and a 10,000 square foot machine shop, employing about two hundred people.  Three miles from the main plant, in Lefflers, the company had a second foundry covering 23,000 square feet.⁴

Along with the Howard engine, the company became well-known for its Corliss steam engine and boiler.  It also made air compressors, pumping engines, tubular boilers, water tube boilers, internal furnace boilers, and feed-water furnaces.  The company’s success, as the author of the 1915 History of Des Moines County and Its People was concerned, came from its ability to adapt to the times, to develop new engine designs or properly alter old designs, to establish new work routines, and to manufacture its own castings and bearings with great precision and the highest quality materials.⁵  Although it is unclear when exactly Murray Iron Works produced this disc sharpener, it is clear that the foundry and factory made a complex machine with great precision and high quality materials.

Notes

¹ The disc plow (or disc harrow) was developed in the nineteenth century.  The disc sharpener was probably developed by the early 1900s.  Several disc sharpeners with a variety of designs were issued in the 1890s, including one patented in Canada in 1895 (Patent 50,065).  Murray Iron Works’ patents for this disc sharpener are Patent 751590, dated February 9, 1904, and Patent 809334, dated January 9, 1906.  You can see and download the first of these patents here.  You can see and download the second patent here.  The company advertised its Monarch disc sharpener at least as early as 1908, in the October issue of The American Blacksmith.
² The American Blacksmith (Buffalo: The American Blacksmith Company, October 12, 1913). The blacksmith who wrote to the journal said that before anyone acquired a disc sharpener, many farmers simply purchased new discs when the old ones became too worn to do sufficient work. He asked readers how much he should charge to sharpen discs, adding that he had heard a price of 75 cents apiece but had read in the magazine that 25 cents was a standard price.

³ Murray Iron Works first produced the Howard Engine around 1881.  For an early discussion of the engine with detailed illustrations, see The American Engineer, Vol. 5, No. 23 (June 8, 1883), pp. 294-297, published by Merrick Cowles Publisher in Chicago.
⁴ Commercial and Statistical Review of the City of Burlington, Iowa. Showing Her Manufacturing, Mercantile and General Business Interests together with Historical Sketches of the Growth and Progress of the “Orchard City,” also Sketches of the Principal Business Houses and Manufacturing Concerns.  J. L. Spalding & Co., 1882.
⁵ History of Des Moines County Iowa and Its People, Vol. II (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915), pp. 14-16, 340.

Early 20th Century Wheelbarrow Sprayer

Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, many North American prairie farmers used insecticides to protect their crop fields, orchards, gardens, and livestock from unwanted insect pests.  They applied some insecticides in powder form and others in liquid form, mixing the powder compound with water or another liquid.  If applying an insecticide in liquid form, farmers turned to a sprayer like Stuhr Museum’s wheelbarrow sprayer to distribute the insecticide solution.
At the time this sprayer was made in the early 1900s, insecticide sprayers and containers were made in a variety of sizes and styles.  The size and style depended often on the needs of the farmer.  Some sprayers and containers, especially ones used for gardens, were smaller and carried by hand.  Others roughly the same size as Stuhr’s sprayer were strapped to people’s backs like a backpack or knapsack and used to spray larger areas such as an orchard.  Sprayers and containers larger than Stuhr’s example were often pushed or pulled around on a cart or a wagon by people or horses, enabling a farmer to spray a larger crop field.  The wheelbarrow pump sprayer here at Stuhr Museum was reportedly used to spray livestock and fruit trees.

A wheelbarrow pump sprayer made by the Hayes
Pump & Planter Company of Galva, Illinois.

In terms of the insecticides used, prairie farmers from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s had a variety of chemical solutions from which to choose.  During the late 1800s, farmers often used chemicals called Paris green or London purple to kill unwanted insects.  Paris green may have been first used on the American prairie in 1867 to combat the Colorado potato beetle.  London purple was a by-product of the fiber dyeing industry and was a finer powder than Paris green, more easily mixed with water for spraying.  Although farmers continued to use Paris green and London purple in the early 1900s, many farmers began to turn to lead arsenate, including Swift’s Arsenate of Lead, as their insecticide of choice.

Some of the unwanted prairie insects in the late 1800s and early 1900s were the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) which attacked potatoes; the Plum Curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar), a weevil that laid its eggs inside apples and other fruits; the chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus) which consumed wheat and corn; the wheat stem maggot (Meromyza americana Fitch) which consumed wheat; the fruit tree bark beetle (Scolytus rugulosus Ratz) which lived underneath the bark on trees, especially oak trees; and the codling moth (Cydia pomonella) which consumed fruit.

c. 1930s De Laval No. 16 Cream Separator

This cream separator was made by the De Laval Cream Separator Company, headquartered in New York City. Tis separator's mechanics were first developed in the late 1800s by Gustaf De Laval in Stockholm, Sweden. Although several cream separators were made to be powered by an animal treadmill or an engine, this separator was made with a hand crank.

This cream separator has a very long series of patents:

195515, patented by W. C. L. Lefeldt and C. G. O. Lentsch on September 25, 1877, which you can view here;

247804, patented by Gustaf De Laval on October 4, 1881, here;

1212371, patented by Meredith Leitch on January 16, 1917, here;

1219567, patented by Meredith Leitch on March 20, 1917, which you can view here;

1253400, patented by Hans Olof Lindgren on January 15, 1918, which you can view here;

1256810 patented by Meredith Leitch and Bert Robert Wright on February 19, 1918, which you can view here;

1293082, patented by Charles Goebler on February 4, 1919, which you can view here;

1305813, patented by Meredith Leitch on June 3, 1919, which you can view here;

1316583, patented by Meredith Leitch on September 23, 1919, which you can view here;

1364119, patented by Meredith Leitch on January 4, 1921, which you can view here;

1364120, patented by Meredith Leitch on January 4, 1921, which you can view here;

1386122, patented by Meredith Leitch on August 2, 1921, which you can view here;

1386148, patented by Bert Robert Wright on August 2, 1921, which you can view here;

1407702, patented by Theodore H. Miller on February 28, 1922, which you can view here;

1407777, patented by Bert Robert Wright on February 28, 1922, which you can view here;

1409958, patented by Meredith Leitch on March 21, 1922, which you can view here;

1425664, patented by Meredith Leitch on August 15, 1922, which you can view here;

1431923, patented by Alton L. Baughman on October 17, 1922, which you can view here;

1453802, patented by Theodore H. Miller on May 1, 1923, which you can view here;

1476760, patented by Meredith Leitch on December 11, 1923, which you can view here;

1694468, patented by Vincent J. Gilmore on December 11, 1928, which you can view here;

1749764, patented by Erik August Forsberg on March 11, 1930, which you can view here;

1784953, patented by Bert Robert Wright on December 16, 1930, which you can view here;

1876656, patented by Erik August Forsberg on September 13, 1932, which you can view here;

1887315, patented by Hans Olof Lindgren on November 8, 1932, which you can view here;

1894985, patented by Alan E. Flowers on January 24, 1933, which you can view here; and

1905261, patented by Fredrik Bernstrom Seth on April 25, 1933, which you can view here.

c. 1901 La Compagnie Desjardins "Champion Canadien" Horse Treadmill

Patenting this treadmill design in February 1899, the Desjardins Company of Saint-André Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada manufactured this machine sometime near the beginning of the twentieth century.¹  Referred to as a “horse power” at the time, the horse treadmill was in great use from the mid-nineteenth century through World War I.  Over time, it would be replaced on many farms on the North American Prairie by the steam engine, the stationary gasoline engine, and the gasoline tractor.  Even when the gasoline tractor began its rise to prominence in the late 1910s and 1920s, many farmers continued to rely heavily on horses as a source of power on their land.

 Although farmers often used horses as draft animals pulling plows and other pieces of equipment for farming, they also used horses to create belt power or torque (by way of a tumbling rod) which could turn wheels and gears on other machines, moving other parts to perform certain tasks.  For example, a farmer or his wife could use a treadmill to power a butter churn, a clothes washer, a cream separator, a corn sheller, a sawing machine, or a log splitter. If using belt power, the farmer or his wife would attach the belt to the belt wheel on the horse treadmill and to a belt wheel on whatever machine he or she was going to use.  As the horse walked on the treadmill, the treadmill's "floor" moved and the belt wheel spun.  As the belt wheel spun, the belt turned in the direction the wheel was spinning.  The belt then turned the wheel on the other machine, for example, a clothes washer.  The clothes washer’s wheel, connected to various gears inside the machine, moved the parts that agitated or stirred the clothes around inside the tub.

By using a treadmill, a farmer and his wife could cut down on their own laborious chores, saving their energy for others tasks.  For larger chores such as running a thresher, machine companies built treadmills for two, three, or even four horses.  For smaller chores in or near the home, machine companies built treadmills for a dog, sheep, burro, or goat.  If you would like to see a short video of a horse and treadmill providing belt power to a small threshing machine, click or touch here.  If you would like to see a longer video of a horse and treadmill providing belt power to a grain separator, click or touch here.

An ad for a Gray's Horse Treadmill, often called a

Horse Power, from the 1900 Farm Implement News
Buyer's Guide, vol. X. This ad shows a treadmill

wider than the Desjardins treadmill at Stuhr. This

treadmill has two horses and is powering a wood saw.

The founder of La Compagnie Desjardins, Charles-Alfred Roy dit Desjardins was born in Saint Louis Kamouraska, Quebec, in what was then called Canada East in 1846.²  By 1867, Desjardins and his wife, Émilie, settled in nearby Saint André Kamouraska, Quebec, where he eventually became a successful businessman in the agricultural equipment industry, and he and his wife became entrepreneurial citizens of the community.  He first incorporated his business in 1890 along with his son, Joseph, and a partner named Joseph-F. Paradis, calling the company “Desjardins et Paradis.”  At this time, the company was producing a wide variety of agricultural equipment, including farm wagons, treadmills, threshers, grain elevators, water wheels, stoves, kettles, and seeders.  In 1899, the company trademarked the name “Champion Canadien,” and in 1901, the company was renamed “La Compagnie Desjardins.”  In 1912, the company trademarked the name “Call of the West,” a name often associated with its well-known stationary engines.  Charles-Alfred died in 1934, but his company continued.  Today, Les Industries Desjardins, a maker of fuel tanks, sawmill machinery, and agricultural machinery, traces its history back to Charles-Alfred.³

^Notes

¹ A patent date of Fevrier (February) 14, 1899 can be found painted on the side of this treadmill, corresponding to Desjardins' Canadian patent, CA 62645.  Later in 1899, Desjardins applied for and obtained a patent for a treadmill design in the United States.  The U.S. patent, Number 635956, can be found here.  Although it has the year 1899 painted on it, we dated this treadmill to c. (circa, “around”) 1901 because the company did not use the name “La Compagnie Desjardins” until 1901.

² The Virtual Museum of Canada provides some information about Desjardins and Kamouraska in English on their website which you can access here.  The site includes several old photographs. If you are able to read French, you can find even more information on the website.  Desjardins also served in the provincial legislature of Quebec in the 1890s, and the Assemblée Nationale Québec provides a little information on Desjardins in French on their website which you can access here.

³ Les Industries Desjardins' website includes a brief history in English which you can access here.

Vermont Farm Machine Company "First Prize Dog Power" Treadmill

Patenting their designs for this dog treadmill, or "dog power," the Vermont Farm Machine Company manufactured this treadmill in Bellows Falls, Vermont, probably near the end of the nineteenth century.  Although this treadmill does not have a date painted on it, other examples of Vermont Machine Company First Prize Dog Powers have a patent date of 1884.

In a similar way to the neighboring horse treadmill on display, farmers and their wives used a dog treadmill like this to power various machines in and around the house.  The farmer or his wife would attach a belt to the belt wheel on the side of the treadmill and to the belt wheel on the side of another machine, for example, a washing machine.  In Stuhr Museum’s display, the dog treadmill is attached to a Voss Platform Washer.  The dog would walk on the treadmill, causing a series of gears inside and the wheel on the outside of the treadmill to spin. The spinning wheel moved the belt which, in turn, spun a wheel on the outside of the washing machine.  The wheel on the washing machine moved gears inside the machine which then turned other parts, agitating or stirring the clothes around in the water inside the machine’s tub.  By using a dog treadmill to power a washing machine, butter churn, cream separator, or other machine, the farmer and his wife had more time to do other things.  By the 1920s, with the growing use of gasoline tractors and electric motors, animal powered treadmills declined in popularity on the farm. 

The Vermont Farm Machine Company which made this treadmill was founded in July 1868 as the Hartford Sorghum Machine Company in the second story of the Bellows Falls’ livery stable.¹  According to Lyman Hayes, in his 1907 History of the Town of Rockingham, Vermont, the company was initially established to make the Cook’s Sugar Evaporator, a nationally popular item used in New England to turn maple sap into syrup.  Not long after its establishment, however, the company began to make horse-rakes and to sell mowing-machines, harrows, and cultivators.

In February 1873, the company was incorporated as the Vermont Farm Machine Company; and, four years later, began to manufacture the Cooley Creamer.  With the success of the Cooley, the company turned away from making rakes and focused its attention on dairy equipment.  By 1892, according to Seeger and Guernsey's Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States, the Vermont Farm Machine Company made cider and fruit evaporators, butter carriers, butter extractors, butter moulds, butter printers, butter workers, butter and cheese triers, cheese hoops, cheese presses, cheese vats, barrel churns, box churns, swing churns, cooling vats, cream separators, cream vats, creameries, dairy tanks, and milk coolers.²  Of these items, the company became known worldwide for its Davis Swing Churn and U.S. Cream Separator, two machines which contributed to the company’s rapid growth from the 1880s to the early 1900s.  According to Hayes, the company began with five employees in 1868.  By 1877, there were twelve.  In 1907, when Hayes’ book was finished, there were 720.  For an additional $15 fee, the company would include with some of these machines a dog treadmill like the one here at Stuhr Museum to help provide power.  In addition to dog powers, the company also made sheep, goat, and burro powers.

An ad for a Vermont Farm Machine Company

Sheep Power running one of their most popular

machines, a U.S. Cream Separator, from the

April 16, 1898 edition of The Churchman.

Notes

¹ Lyman Simpson Hayes, History of the Town of Rockingham, Vermont: Including the Villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1753-1907, with Family Genealogies (Bellows Falls, VT: The Town, 1907), pp. 422-424. The book was printed in Lynn, Massachusetts by Frank S. Whitten, a man who learned some of the printing trade while working for the Bellows Falls newspaper.

² Seeger and Guernsey's Cyclopaedia of the Manufactures and Products of the United States, 2nd ed. (New York: The Seeger and Guernsey Co., 1892).  In the 1899 edition of Seeger and Guernsey’s Cyclopaedia (New York: The United States Industrial Publishing Company, 1899), the list of Vermont Farm Machine Company products also included cream testers, hoisting cranks, milk aerators, milk cans, milk testing machines, sap evaporators, and sugar evaporators.  It also listed horse power, dog power, and sheep and goat power for the company’s products. The 1910 edition of Implement Blue Book: The Standard Implement and Vehicle Directory of the United States (St. Louis: Midland Publishing Company, 1910) states that the Vermont Farm Machine Company produced dog, goat, and burro powers; Davis Swing churns, Vermont Box churns, U.S. hand and power cream separators, C. V. boilers, Williams maple syrup and sorghum evaporators, and Eureka feed cookers.

c. 1914 Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company Platform Washer

Developed by the Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company of Davenport, Iowa, this platform washing machine became a very popular machine by the 1910s, even being sold overseas.  Early Voss Brothers models were powered by hand or by a belt attached to an animal treadmill; however, by 1905, the company had attached a small motor to many of its washers.  Just as with many machines during the period from 1900 to 1930, the washing machine was adapted to changes in mechanization and power supply.  Over his lifetime, William H. Voss, the company’s founder, acquired several dozen patents for his designs which reveal his constant rethinking of the washing machine and how it would work.  Stuhr’s Voss washing machine is not connected to an electric motor but is connected by belt to a First Prize Dog Power Treadmill which, with the aide of an energetic dog, could be used to power it.

When this washer was made near the beginning of the twentieth century, there were a wide variety of ways to wash clothes.  Throughout the preceding century, many women and men on the North American prairie used a washboard or a simple wooden tub with a wood stirrer to do the clothes washing.  Although the first mechanized washing machines date back to the late eighteenth century, the earliest models were sold primarily to public institutions and wealthy households.  As mechanized washing machines became more widely available at a lower cost during the last few decades of the nineteenth century, more women and men began using them on prairie farms.  By the time Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company made this platform washer, they had already sold several hundred thousand washers all over the United States.

Although there were a variety of options for using the platform washer, the person doing the washing could have followed a very simple process.  If, for example, a lady of the house kept to one of the most common processes, she had two additional, plain tubs set on the platform as well as access to water and heat.  She placed the clothes to be washed inside the tub you see on the platform.  She then added boiling water and some form of washing soap (sometimes mixed with paraffin wax) to the tub.  In order to power the machine, she had a dog or sheep on a power treadmill, or an electric motor which turned the belt wheel and spun a mechanical stirrer inside the tub, moving the clothes around.

From Electrical Record, vol. XVI, no. 6 (Dec., 1914), p. 42.

Once the washing machine was finished, the woman of the house wrung the clothes out in the wringer set up next to the washing machine tub.  In order to do it properly, she folded the clothes so that any buttons were turned inside and so the piece of clothing was an even thickness as it moved through the wringer.  After removing as much soapy water as possible with the wringer, she then placed the clothes into the first tub for rinsing, trying to remove as much of the soapy residue as possible.  After rinsing, she might wring the clothes out a second time before hanging them up to dry.  For whites, she used the second tub for bluing.  The term bluing refers to the indigo, Prussian blue, ultramarine, or aniline blue solution diluted in water and used to remove the yellowing caused by the washing soaps.¹  After bluing the clothes, she again might rinse and wring them before hanging them up to dry.  Before the development of a washing process like this, a person took the better part of a day to do the washing.  Using this process, she or he could finish by midmorning.

An image of the Voss Brothers factory, found in Farm
Implement News, vol. XXXV, no. 48 (Nov. 26, 1914).

Established in 1877 and incorporated in 1901, the Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company helped make Davenport, Iowa, into an important center for the washing machine industry.  The Voss brothers, William H., Fred P., and John A., came to Davenport from Mecklenburg, Germany, with their parents in the early 1870s.²  William followed his father in the woodworking trade and, after his father’s death in 1876, became the primary breadwinner for the family.  Later that year, William began experimenting with his first washer in order to help his mom save time washing the family’s clothes.  He sold his first washer for ten dollars soon after; however, when he started a shop in 1877, he focused on wood working of all kinds and not just on washing machines.  In 1882, his younger brothers joined him in his venture and they built a larger factory in anticipation of their growth.  By 1901, the company had become very successful focusing on washing machines, mass producing their Ocean Wave washer which they would eventually sell worldwide.

By 1910, the brothers had developed several washing machines, as well as the Little Giant Corn Cutter, ironing boards, and clothes driers.  The 1909 edition of Millard’s Implement Directory of Illinois and Iowa listed the Automatic, Eagle, Eclipse, High-Speed Rotary, and Ocean Wave as the company’s washing machine models.³  In 1909, according to historian Edgar Rubey Harlan, the company also “perfected the platform washer,” an example of which is the washer displayed at Stuhr (although lacking the additional tubs for rinsing and bluing).⁴  To the 1909 Millard’s list, the 1912 Implement Blue Book added the Duplex, Mermaid, Pendulum, Sunshine, Universal, and Voss models.⁵  By 1914, the company’s factory in Davenport had 75,000 square feet of floor space and employed about one hundred workers.⁶  It was possibly around this time that the factory produced Stuhr Museum’s platform washer, a washer which looks much like the one advertised on the pages of several editions of Farm Implement News in 1914.

An advertisement from Farm Implement News,

vol. XXXV, no. 40 (Oct. 1, 1914), p. 31.

Note the electric motor connected by belt

to the wheel on the side of the washer.

Notes

¹ The process for bluing was described in The Cornell Reading-Courses Lesson for the Farm Home, vol. 1, No. 11 (March 1, 1912), printed in the Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University and the Agricultural Experiment Station Established Under the Direction of Cornell University, Part II, pp. 1123-1124, published in Ithaca by Cornell University and printed in Albany by J. B. Lyon Company in 1913.  You can find a variety of detailed contemporary descriptions of clothes washing processes in this volume.  If you would like to see a wonderful video showing several different types of clothes washers from the late 1800s and early 1900s, click or touch here.  This video is about 7 minutes and 30 seconds long, and its host shows you several different mechanisms which inventors devised to tumble, stir, or agitate clothes in a tub.  The video is provided by the Washing Machine Museum in Eaton, Colorado.

² Edgar Rubey Harlan, “William H. Voss,” from A Narrative History of the People of Iowa with Special Treatment of Their Chief Enterprises in Education, Religion, Valor, Industry, Business, Etc., vol. IV (Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1931), says the Voss family settled in Scott County, Iowa fourteen years after William’s birth on August 21, 1856; John Willard, “Changing the World of Washing,” The Quad-City Times, June 14, 2005, says the family arrived in Davenport in 1873.  Harlan’s article can be found here.  Willard’s article can be found here.  The Quad-City Times has at least two other articles on their website which give a little more information on Voss Brothers.

³ F. A. Millard, Millard’s Implement Directory of Illinois and Iowa, vol. XIII (1909).

⁴ Edgar Rubey Harlan, “William H. Voss.”

⁵ 1912 Implement Blue Book: The Standard Implement and Vehicle Directory of the United States (St. Louis: Midland Publishing Co., 1912).  By 1916, the list of Voss Bros. Co. products included the E1, E2, and Voss Electric Washing Machines; the Automatic, Duplex, Eagle, Eclipse, High Speed, Ocean Wave, Pendulum, Sunshine, Universal, Vacuum, and Voss Hand Washing Machines; the G1, G2, Ocean Wave, Sunshine, and Universal Power Washing Machines; and the Mermaid, and Voss Water Motor Washing Machines.  Millard’s Implement Directory for Eastern Iowa and Northern Illinois, vol. XX (1916), pp. 838-844, published by Implement Trade Journal Co. in Kansas City, MO.

⁶ Farm Implement News, vol. xxxv, no. 48 November 26, 1914. p. 69.