Water Pump

For many Canadians, laundry day involved carrying buckets of water from the well to the stove for heating, and from the stove to the washer for laundering. Indeed, until the early 1930s, most washers were filled by hand or hose and were drained by means of gravity by way of a spigot and hose attached to the bottom lip of the tub (770307). Manufacturers like the Easy Washing Machine Company eliminated these labour-intensive steps in the late 1920s. They introduced machines equipped with a pump that drained the tub (780937). In time, the pump also filled the tub. With the spread of gas and electric domestic hot water heaters in the 1930s, the tub could be filled with hot water without effort. Some of the most arduous laundry tasks, like hauling, heating, filling and draining, were thus eliminated.

An impeller style pump drew off water during the spin cycle in this electric vacuum cup washer by the Easy Washing Machine Company, Toronto, Ontario, c. 1940 (780937). Photo courtesy of Imager.