Archives and Auteurs: Wednesday Wonders - Together in Electric Dreams

"As long ago as November, 1924, a small group of clear-sighted women foresaw rapid development of the use of electricity in domestic spheres, and from their belief that it was destined to become the most valuable factor in modern home life, developed the Electrical Association for Women".

Image from EAW pamphlet, NUWT Collection, ref no UWT/D/55/17 © Institute of Education

I don't quite know why but when I first read this on the cover of one of their pamphlets I read it as if I was reading the Star Wars credits and imagined the words rolling down the screen - a long, long time ago, etc. It's not quite that dramatic but it was still very striking to me that something which we now take so much for granted was then such a novelty. I have to confess to having little, i.e. no, idea how electricity works, I just accept that I walk into a room and turn the light on, that my washing machine works, that I can plug in a hoover and clean our tiny flat in under 10 minutes etc. In 1924 though, electricity in the home was only beginning. The aim of the EAW was 'to eliminate from housekeeping the drudgery which the dirt and grime of mechanical process has brought into it' - sounds good eh?! Their slogan was 'Emancipation from Drudgery' and their purpose was twofold - 1. ensure that all women knew about electricity, how they could get it , and how best to make use of it 2. to put forward women's views on electrical matters.

Now I am not getting all rose-tinted glasses sentimental about the past here - the more equal sharing of household work now - cleaning and cooking - is something which I am all for of course! What this file of correspondence and pamphlets made me remember was how much harder it must have been before electricity. It also reminded me that the assumption of these kinds of comforts is of course sadly still limited and in no way equal throughout the world.

Something else which comes up a lot in the correspondence is the use of questionnaires and experiments with women to test the safety and ease of use of electrical appliances. Then, and probably still now given the ratio of men to women engineers, electrical appliances for the home would be designed by men, but in the 1920s at least, used almost exclusively by women. The tests they would carry out would measure things like what height of oven is the most convenient to use, how to make electric hobs safer around children, right through to how to change a fuse and how to wire a plug.

I've included a few more images from one of the EAW publications - the Electrical Housecraft School is where a lot of the testing and training was carried out. The bottom illustrations I just included because the pamphlet was full of them and I thought they were lovely!