@Npars01 @ian
Same with vacuum cleaners. They were luxury devices only until after WWII where they started to appear in middle class homes en masse. (Hell, before the 1930s they were massive machines driven house to house in wealthy neighbourhoods to clean them!)

In both cases it was the newfound desire for women to be freed from drudgery that drove the introduction of and/or mass production of genuine labour-saving devices. A societal change drove technological innovation, in short.

🧵 (2/2)