Retrotech 1925: Domestic Technologies and Municipal Infrastructure

 

The Twenties.  An era of Prohibition (and gangsters)…jazz…flappers…The Great Gatsby…and an accelerating stock market. I thought it might be fun to take a look at the state of technology as it stood a century ago, in 1925.  This fourth post of the series is focused on domestic technologies and municipal infrastructure.  (The first post focused on communications and entertainment,  the second post on transportation,  and the third post on calculating and information management systems.)

Illumination.  For all of history until fairly recently, nightfall was a lot more significant than it has since become. Lighting was limited and expensive. (In one of the Hornblower novels, the protagonist stays up late in his hotel room and wonders how large the charge for ‘light’ will be on his hotel bill when he checks out.)  Gas lighting (using gas made from coal) was introduced in the early 1800s and had significant advantages over torches, candles, whale-oil lamps, and similar solutions, but also had disadvantages: principally smell, soot, and heat. After Thomas Edison’s development of a practical light bulb and a system for power distribution, electric lighting gained popularity rapidly. In 1925, about 90-95% of urban homes were electrified…the proportion was much lower for rural homes, estimated as low as 10%.

Heating.  Most homes relied on coal or wood-burning stoves or furnaces for heating. Central heating with coal-fired furnaces was common in urban middle-class homes, distributing heat via radiators or hot air ducts.  In rural areas or older homes, fireplaces or wood stoves remained prevalent. Gas and oil heating were starting to appear in wealthier urban homes but were less common.

The idea of the thermostat goes back to when the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel (the creator of the first submarine in history) invented an oven to incubate eggs, whose temperature was controlled by a mercury thermostat and an air intake that allowed larger or smaller quantities of hot air to pass through. A thermostat that could regulate the output of coal furnaces was developed by Albert Butz and Mark Honeywell between 1883 and 1906: these devices operated by opening and closing the damper to regulate the rate of combustion. They still seem to have been fairly rare in home heating systems in 1925, so maintaining a comfortable temperature must have taken frequent adjustment, in addition to occasional coal-shoveling.

Cooking.  Cooking was usually done on stovetops or in ovens, with cast-iron cookware common. Open-hearth cooking was nearly obsolete but persisted in some rural homes.  Something like 5-10% of homes used gas for cooking (this was usually “town gas”, i.e., gas made from coal, rather than natural gas)..they greatly reduced the labor required for cooking with a coal or wood stove–the phrase gas-stove wife reflected the additional leisure that the owner of such an appliance might expect to have.  There’s an interesting article here about the social and culinary impact of easier cooking.

Electric stoves had been commercially introduced circa 1900, but in 1925 they were still pretty rare. These stoves were expensive, costing $100–$300 compared to gas stoves ($50–$100) or coal/wood stoves ($20–$50). (Multiply by 16 for equivalents in today’s money.) Moreover, they required higher-capacity electric service than was required for lighting.

Refrigeration. The most common method for keeping food cold was still the icebox.  Regular ice deliveries were required, and there was an industry providing this service. About 80% of homes used iceboxes in 1925.  Electric refrigerators were available but they were expensive–about $500, equivalent to $8000 today.  Gas refrigerators–which had no moving parts–had been invented but were not yet commercially available at any scale. Ammonia was commonly used as the refrigerant; this resulted in several tragedies, one of which motivated Albert Einstein and his then-student Leo Szilard to invent an improved refrigerator which used an electromagnetic pump. Their invention never made it to commercialization, though.

Laundry. Manual washing was a time-consuming task. Owen Young, a farm boy who grew up to be chairman of General Electric, explained to his biographer what Monday–wash day–had been like back on the farm:
He drew from his memory a vivid picture of its miseries: the milk coming into the house from the barn; the skimming to be done; the pans and buckets to be washed; the churn waiting attention; the wash boiler on the stove while the wash tub and its back-breaking device, the washboard, stood by; the kitchen full of steam; hungry men at the door anxious to get at the day’s work and one pale, tired, and discouraged woman in the midst of this confusion.
The electric clothes washing machine was first introduced in 1908, but by the mid-1920s they were still only in about 5% of homes. And for farm families like those Owen Young spoke about, there was likely to be no electricity available..some people hooked up washing machines to small gas engines, but these were probably fairly uncommon. So circa 1932, when Young spoke with his biographer, the wash-day situation on most farms would have been still pretty much the way he remembered from his boyhood.

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Retrotech: Technology in 1925–Calculating and Information Management Systems

The twenties.  An era of Prohibition (and gangsters)…jazz…flappers…The Great Gatsby…and an accelerating stock market. I thought it might be fun to take a look at the state of technology as it stood a century ago, in 1925.  This third post of the series is focused on calculating and information management systems.  (The first post focused on communications and entertainment and the second post on transportation)

Devices to assist human computation go back a long way,  The abacus first appeared around 2400 BC.  and notched tally sticks have been found from as long ago as 20,000 BC.  The first true mechanical calculator was developed by Blaise Pascal in 1642. (It was apparently developed to assist with tax calculations!)  It was improved by Leibnitz in 1673, but the first commercially-successful calculating machine was the Arithmometer, introduced in 1820!

The growth of large organizations–government and business–drove the need for more computation, as did the expansion of scientific research. By 1925, machines for addition and subtraction were well-developed, with many being electrified to reduce operator fatigue.  Multiplication was a harder problem, and multiplying numbers on most of these machines involved a rather klutzy multistep process. If your process involved a lot of multiplication, probably the best option in 1925 was still the Millionaire, introduced in 1893 and featuring direct multiplication–the multiplication table was actually mechanically built into the machine, rather than requiring multiple additions for each multiplier digit.  These devices were priced at $475 to $1100 in the early 1900s–for comparison, in 1909, a new Oldsmobile Runabout automobile cost approximately $650, and the average annual wage was under $750.  I haven’t found any sources for the Millionaire price in 1925, but given the mechanical complexity of the system, I doubt that it had gotten any cheaper.

The cash register first appeared in 1886 and was dubbed The Incorruptible Cashier, reflecting its primary purpose–preventing employee fraud. Some history.

Bookkeeping machines (also called accounting machines), which evolved from cash registers, were basically adding machines which could maintain multiple totals and print them when required.  Here’s a video about the NCR Class 2000 Accounting Machine, which was introduced in 1921 and marketed through 1955.  These machines were used for a range of applications, notably in hotels and banks.  They were fiendishly expensive..the video quotes a 1940s machine at $2000, which would be around $40,000 in today’s money…but businesses seemed to feel that they got a good return on their investment from them.

When great precision was not required, slide rules were employed: they were common in science and engineering. They also found some use in business for such things as profit margin calculations, but they couldn’t be used for accounting purposes where precise balancing was needed.

Typewriters had become common in offices. One major advantage they offered, in addition to improved legibility, was the ability to make multiple copies via carbon paper–Xerox machines were still a long way in the future. (It’s generally claimed that it was the introduction of typewriters that brought women in large numbers into offices, although it’s not obvious to me why they couldn’t have performed equally well making copies and doing other functions in pre-typewriter offices)

Mathematical tables were important as a way to minimize burdensome calculations.  Celestial navigation was one area in which great effort had been developed to creating tables and making them as accurate and easy-to-use as possible.  Logarithms were extensively used to shortcut the multiplication and division of multi-digit numbers.

Punched card systems were a significant technology in 1925, though not as important as they would later become: just one year earlier, the predominant company in the field had changed its name to International Business Machines from its previous one, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company.  (“That  little outfit?” thought young Tom Watson Jr when his father announced the change, picturing the company’s rather random-seeming collection of products, which included time clocks, coffee grinders, and scales, and the “cigar-chomping guys” who sold them)

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Interesting Finds

Someone mentioned the inventor & entrepreneur Joesph Gerber as being the developer of numerically-controlled machines for fabric cutting, as well as a lot of other things. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen Gerber plotting machines in the past, but had never thought about the man behind the company name. He sounded interesting enough that I bought a copy of his biography, written by his son David Gerber: The Inventor’s Dilemma.  And it’s an interesting story indeed.

Joseph Gerber escaped Nazi Austria in 1940, coming to the United States where he completed high school in just two years while learning English and holding down full-time and part-time jobs. While a junior at RPI, he developed his first commercially-successful invention: the Gerber Variable Scale, which assists in multiplying graphical data by constants.  He later invented and marketed the Gerber Derivimeter, used to find the derivative at points on a curve and the Gerber Equameter, used to determine the equation of a curve based on a mathematical series such as Fourier series and polynomial expansions.  His company went on the pioneer the development of digital plotters and digitizers to convert graphical data into digital form.  Overall, he and the company he founded were granted more than 600 patents. Probably Gerber’s most significant work was in the development of numerically-controlled fabric cutters and numerically-controlled sewing machines–the trade magazine Bobbin Journal referred to him as Apparel’s Thomas Edison.

Researching Gerber and his accomplishments also led me to a remarkable trove of radio-program audio recordings from 1935 to 1953, the DuPont-sponsored series Cavalcade of America. This link contains 745 episodes of the program–the Gerber episode is #613, titled Young Man in a Hurry. It was broadcast in 1950, following Gerber’s invention of the Variable Scale but quite early in his career. More about the series and the Gerber episode here.

The Cavalcade of America series continued on television from 1952-1957, and quite a few episodes can be found on YouTube.

The idea that substantial parts of the apparel and shoe industries might return to the US has been derogated in some quarters, but one or two creative and entrepreneurial individuals of the Joe Gerber class might well make it possible.

Retrotech: Technology in 1925–Transportation

 

The twenties.  An era of Prohibition (and gangsters)…jazz…flappers…The Great Gatsby…and an accelerating stock market. I thought it might be fun to take a look at the state of technology as it stood a century ago, in 1925.  This second post of the series is focused on transportation: land, sea, and air.  (The first post, centering on communications and entertainment, is here.)

Land Transportation. Although there was much excitement and innovation around aircraft and automobiles, in 1925 the railroads still ruled, they were vital for passenger as well as freight transportation.  John Stilgoe’s book Metropolitan Corridor is an interesting exploration of the psychological and cultural impact of the tracks that connected the country.

No traditional spatial term, not urbansuburban, or rural, not cityscape or landscape, adequately identifies the space that perplexed so many turn-of-the-century observers. Reaching from the very hearts of great cities across industrial zones, suburbs, small towns, and into mountain wildernesses, the metropolitan corridor objectified in its unprecedented arrangement of space and structure a wholly new lifestyle. Along it flowed the forces of modernization, announcing the character of the twentieth century, and abutting it sprouted new clusters of buildings. Its particular juxtaposition of elements attracted the scrutiny of photographers and advertising illustrators; its romance inveigled poets and novelists; its energy challenged architects, landscape architects, and urban designers. Always it resisted definition in traditional terminology.

To many rural Americans, the Corridor was the connection to a more exciting and glamorous kind of life:

So magnificent was the Illinois Central crack express–The Panama Limited–that every day for twelve years the Sixth Mississippi District Court at Vaiden recessed so that everyone could watch it come through the station…Until the 1920s, such trains represented prosperity and the promise of greater prosperity, luxury, futuristic design, and urbanity. To some Depression-era watchers, the expresses announced good times returning; to others, they advertised an unequal distribution of wealth. Long before and well into the Depression, however, the fast trains bespoke a peculiarly American strassenromantik, one centered on cities flashing across farms and forests, attracting the wondering admiration of children and adults…Every railroad right-of-way shared in the glamor that lingered like a whiff of coal smoke left after the all-Pullman express had passed. In the remotest corners of rural American, in suburbs of broad lawns, in small towns, the luxury express advertised the crackling energy of urban industrial zones.

The steam locomotive was king, and hauled the vast majority of intercity traffic.  Some heavily-travelled corridors were electrified, as was freight service in some mountainous districts.  New York City had banned steam locomotives downtown effective in 1908, leading to the electrification of the relevant lines and the covering over of the New York Central tracks, thereby creating new and highly valuable real estate. (“Taking wealth from the air”)  Gasoline and diesel power were largely limited to rail yard work and local/suburban passenger service, but a  demonstration locomotive for diesel-electric power had been built by American Locomotive Company, GE, and Ingersoll-Rand in 1923, with the first commercial diesel-electric locomotive delivered in 1925.

The steam locomotive had been greatly improved from its earlier days. Boiler pressures had increased to around 200-250 psi, and superheaters had become common, increasing efficiencies by 25-30%.  Although manual firing was still used on smaller locomotives, the automatic stoker had been introduced in the early 1900s and was now common (I believe legally required) on larger engines.  Compound locomotives had been developed, and significantly improved efficiency, but were more commonly used in Europe than in the United States. Why? An article in the 1930 issue of Mechanical Engineering magazine explains that while compound locomotives did save fuel, they required more maintenance-and in Europe, fuel was more expensive than in the US, but labor was cheaper–an interesting point, I think.

Safety by 1925 had been greatly improved from the early days of railroading; the air brake was key to this accomplishment, as were sophisticated interlocking signal systems. Centralized traffic control systems, which allowed a dispatcher to observe track occupancy and control signals and switches from an office dozens of miles away, were on the horizon–CTC would be introduced on the New York Central in 1927.

Electric trolleys were pervasive in most cities of any size–they had replaced earlier horse-drawn services that ran on tracks–but their dominance was beginning to be challenged by buses and automobiles.

On the roads, the Ford Model T was still the dominant product, with 15 million units being sold from its introduction in 1908 up through its replacement by the Model A in 1927.  The newer Ford would feature a self-starter and a three-speed transmission, as opposed to the hand-cranking and two-speed transmission with the Model T.  There were no automatic transmissions in 1925.  For manual shifting, the synchromesh had been invented in 1918, but it wasn’t introduced until 1928.

A Model T touring car in 1925 was priced at $260–that’s about $4700 in 2025 money. It’s estimated that about 40-45% of American families owned cars.  There were still at lot of working horses in the US–22 million in 1925, not that many below the 25 million in the peak year of 1920.

Trucking was primarily local, due in large part to the poor condition of intercity roads and the high state of development that had been reached by the railroads. If you were in a rural area and ordered something large and heavy from Sears or other mail order vendor (furniture, appliances), it would likely be delivered via rail to your local train station and you’d need to pick it up from there, or get somebody to do it for you.

Sea Transportation. Cargo ships were mostly powered by reciprocating steam engines, but there were still quite a few sailing vessels in use. Passenger liners were usually driven by steam turbines. The transatlantic speed record in 1925 was still held by the RMS Mauretania (sister ship of the Lusitania), with a service speed of 25-28 knots.  She carried 2165 passengers and also had a government mail contract.

Conversion of shipping from coal to oil fuel had begun in the early 1900s, but there were still a lot of coal-powered ships operating in 1925. Some experiments with steam-electric propulsion had been conducted immediately prior to WWI, but this propulsion mode turned out to be inferior for most purposes to the steam turbine with reduction gears.

Container freight had not yet been invented, so the loading and unloading of cargo at ports was very labor-intensive.

In naval warfare, the battleship still ruled at sea, but was being challenged by air-delivered bombs and torpedoes. In 1921, airpower advocate Billy Mitchell demonstrated that he could sink warships with bombs–including the former German battleship Ostfriesland, a ship that had proven its robust qualities by surviving 18 hits from British battleship guns and then striking a mine.

Air Transportation.  The aviation industry was advancing rapidly in 1925, but there was not much scheduled airline service yet in the US.  Air mail had been introduced in 1919, with a route between New York City and Washington DC, soon expanded to encompass NYC–Cleveland–Chicago.  Transcontinental service was introduced in 1920, using a combination of air and rail to avoid the need for night flying; 1924 marked the beginning of night airmail service. A major institutional change affecting aviation in 1925 was the Kelley Act, which provided that airmail would hence be carried by private contractors rather than government employees.

Aircraft were still mostly fabric-covered, and biplane construction was common. In 1925, the Ford Motor Company began production of the Ford Trimotor, an all-metal monoplane which carried 8-9 passengers, in addition to pilot, copilot, and stewardess.  Almost 200 of them were ultimately built, and quite a few of them are still flying. Cruising speed was 92 knots (107 mph). However, they weren’t yet available for service in 1925.

Gyroscopic instruments had solved the problem of maintaining control of an airplane without outside visual references, but this did not solve the problem of navigation in low visibility or at night.  The problem of navigation at night was partially solved by the construction of the lighted airways, with the major airways having been completed by 1925. Radio-range navigation would come later, although there may have been some limited use of radio direction finding to take bearings from commercial radio stations.

Dirigibles were viewed as an up-and-coming technology.  Germany had been a pioneer in the lighter-than-air field, having operated both military aircraft and limited passenger services in the years before the First World War.  Construction of large airships was not permitted by the terms of the Versailles Treaty; however, this provision was relaxed in 1925 and construction of the transatlantic airship Graf Zeppelin was begun.  The US Navy was excited by the potential of dirigibles as adjuncts to the surface fleet. The Los Angeles (pictured above) was built in Germany and delivered to the US as war reparations in 1924.  Among other things, it was intended as a flying aircraft carrier which would serve as a base for small fighter and observation planes.  She served until 1939.  The first helium-filled airship was another US Navy aircraft, the US-built Shenandoah, which first flew in 1923 and made the first crossing of North America by airship. She was destroyed in a squall line over Ohio in October 1925.

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Coupling (rerun with updates)

(I was  reminded of this 2018 post by the massive power outage in Spain and Portugal)

No, this post is not about sex…sorry. Nor is it primarily about electrical engineering, though it might at first give that impression.)

The often-interesting General Electric blog (now defunct, following the breakup of GE into three separate companies) had an article about drones, linked to a cloud-based AI platform, which are used to inspect power lines and detect incipient problems–for example, vegetation which is threatening to encroach on the lines and short them out, or a transformer with a tendency to overheat.  The article mentions a 2003 event in which an encounter between an overgrown tree branch and a sagging power line resulted in a wide-area blackout that affected 50 million people.

The inspection drone sounds like a very useful and productivity-improving tool: obviously, inspecting thousands of miles of power lines is nontrivial job. But the deeper issue, IMO, is the fact that one problem in one place can propagate over such a wide area and affect such a vast number of people. Power system designers and the people who operate these systems are certainly aware of the need to minimize fault propagation:  circuit breakers and fuses, network analysis tools,  and the technologies of protective relaying were developed, by GE among others, precisely for reasons of fault localization.  But experience shows that large-scale fault propagation still sometimes does take place.

This problem is not limited to electrical systems.  The mention of the tree-branch-caused 2003 blackout reminded me of a passage from the historian Hendrik Willem Van Loon:

Unfortunately in the year 1914 the whole world was one large international workshop. A strike in the Argentine was apt to cause suffering in Berlin. A raise in the price of certain raw materials in London might spell disaster to tens of thousands of long-suffering Chinese coolies who had never even heard of the existence of the big city on the Thames. The invention of some obscure Privat-Dozent in a third-rate German university would often force dozens of Chilean banks to close their doors, while bad management on the part of an old commercial house in Gothenburg might deprive hundreds of little boys and girls in Australia of a chance to go to college.

This probably overstates the interconnectedness of the global economy as it existed in 1914, but would fit our present-day global economy very well.  (The author was talking about the origins of WWI, which he blamed largely on economic interconnectedness…not correct, IMO, but the war was largely caused, or at least reached the scale that it did, because of another type of interconnectedness…in the shape of alliances.)

I think much of the reaction against globalization is due to a realization, often-subconscious, that coupling can have bad effects as well as good ones…especially, a feeling that events are beyond the control of those who are most affected by them and have instead passed under the control of those with no “skin in the game”, to use Nassim Taleb’s terminology.

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