Yes, early 1900 washers touted their (then) hand driven washing machines had far more gentle washing action because things were moved through a "whirlpool" of water.
Whirlpool was using a direct drive system on this machine way back then. Interesting how a couple of these ideas played out over the history of their automatics.
There's a European automatic version of this agitator on Youtube somewhere, once linked here at Aworg; it may have been a Brastemp. Wouldn't it be grand if you could find it, Love. The load really did some memorable rockin' and rollin' !