Clothes Dryer

Hello there. I’m your friendly clothes dryer, and my favorite thing to do is make your clothes warm, fluffy, and cozy. But have you ever wondered what people did before I was around? It was a lot of work. Long ago, after clothes were washed, they had to be hung outside on a long rope called a clothesline. Every single sock, shirt, and towel had to be pinned up, one by one. Everyone had to hope for a sunny, breezy day to get their clothes dry. If it rained, oh dear. All the clothes would get soaked all over again, and everyone had to rush to bring them inside, where they would hang, damp and drippy, all over the house. Laundry day depended entirely on the weather, and sometimes it took a very, very long time for a favorite pair of pajamas to be ready to wear again.

My story began a very long time ago, even before there were electric lights in most homes. Around the year 1800, a clever man in France named M. Pochon created my great-great-great-grandfather. It was a big metal drum with holes in it. You had to put the wet clothes inside and turn a handle to spin it over a fire. It was a smart idea, but it was very hard work, and sometimes the clothes got a little too toasty or smoky. Many years later, an inventor named J. Ross Moore decided there had to be an easier, safer way. He lived in North Dakota, where the winters were super cold and snowy. He felt bad seeing people struggle with frozen laundry on their clotheslines. He thought, “I can invent something better.”. He spent years in his workshop, tinkering with wires, motors, and heaters. He drew many pictures and built many models, imagining a special cabinet where clothes could dance and tumble around in warm air until they were perfectly dry. He wanted to create a machine that did the work all by itself. Finally, he created a wonderful design for an automatic me. The first automatic clothes dryers, based on his ideas, were made for families to use in the year 1938.

Once I started showing up in people's homes, I made a wonderful difference. Suddenly, it didn't matter if it was rainy, snowy, or cloudy outside. Families could have dry clothes any day of the week, at any time. I told them, “Don’t worry about the weather, I’ll have your socks warm in no time.”. Laundry day became so much easier and faster. This gave families more time to do fun things together, like playing in the park, reading books, or baking cookies. I felt so happy knowing I was helping. And I’m still helping today, in houses all around the world, making sure everyone has warm, soft clothes to wear whenever they need them. The next time you pull out a toasty towel or a cozy sweater from me, you’ll know the long story of how I came to be your warm and helpful friend.