Easy Spindrier shown in "Driving Miss Daisy"

[bradross]

Hello all,
I recently re-watched "Driving Miss Daisy" and noticed there is an Easy Spindrier shown in the kitchen. It's the older type with two handles, rather than the central dial control knob. Here's a pic ...

 

[delco1946]

I love everything about this kitchen!

 

[whitewhiskers]

Brad, somewhat off-topic here. What version of Driving Miss Daisy do you have/watched? I have a Region 1 DVD and it doesn't show the Easy machine in the scene. The camera never pans below or to the right of Dan Aykroyd's tie. Were you watching a Blu-ray disc? I love this movie!

 

[bradross]

Gary, it was on Prime video.

 

[bradross]

Here's a screen capture...

 

[rpms]

Would Miss Daisy ever use the spindryer herself or just supervised?

 

[launderess]

"Would Miss Daisy ever use the spindryer herself ?'

She had help, maid named Idella.

 

[helicaldrive]

Why

Didn’t the SpinDrier become more popular and overtake the wringer washer? Seems it would have been much more pleasant to use than a wringer. Were they substantially more expensive? Or were they not marketed until after automatics had already hit the scene?

 

[combo52]

Reply number seven

Why didn’t spin dryer type washers takeoff and take over wringer washer sales

The main reason was cost. They cost more. They took up more room and they were still a lot of work even though they were a lot safer than a wringer washer.

The automatic washer was just inevitable. They saved so much work and did the job better than most people did with a wringer washer.

Combination Washer dryers will become the most popular type of machine in the next decades, it took a long time for combinations to get rolling but there’s no turning back now.

John

 

[gansky1]

 

This was only one room of Miss Daisy's kitchen/pantry/laundry. It looked like a wonderful space to work in.  I seem to remember a Chambers gas range in the main kitchen.

 

In the late 30's, Consumer Reports declared the wringer washer obsolete as there were far more convenient options available.  The spinner washer was (in their opinion) to be the modern pinnacle of home laundry machines. Better performance, ease of use and most importantly as safe as a washer could be for the time.  Wringer washers would go on to be produced for another five decades, far outlasting full-size spinner washers.  

 

[launderess]

Twin tub washers with "spin drier" extraction had been around since 1930's if not bit before. Besides Easy there was General Electric, Hotpoint, and perhaps a few others.

Thing was IIRC everyone seemed to source their twin tub washers from same place: Easy.

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?92018

Consumer groups gave these twin tub/spin drier washers warm praise, much of that from fact they lacked the dreaded wringer (mangle). Housewives OTOH weren't exactly won over.

First and foremost these twin tub washers were large, and not always shaped for convenient storage out of way when wash day was over. With a wringer washer one moves things to sink/source of water, sets up series of tubs, etc.. But when wash day is over all that is put away. Those twin tub washers were another matter.

Then came fact then as today any sort of extractor, spin drier or whatever you want to call them tend to vibrate and or move about when operated. Offerings by Easy, GE and rest were no different. This tended to unnerve some users and consumer groups. Easy sold little rubber disks one could place under wheels of washer to make it more stable during spinning, how well they worked I cannot say.

Twin tub washers with spin dryer/extractor cost more than wringer washers. That counted in many households where money may have been tight. Not every household (ok, His Nibbs who often was in charge of how money was spent) didn't see benefit of spindrier machines over wringer washers versus cost.

Video clip from 1939 showing a woman using twin tub washer/spin drier. It was filmed at a housing complex in Greenbelt, Maryland. Notice how laundry room has also Maytag wringer washers.

You can see compared to the Maytag WW the spindrier machine is quite large.

 

[dominic20]

a friend of mine john pinto needs help with one of those

he cont get it to drain it is stuck in closed position.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the video visit to Old Greenbelt

Be all of that as it may, the Spin Drier machines did not require set tubs to function, although they were similar in size to a pair of set tubs. They could be rolled up to a kitchen sink. The original wall hung sinks in Greenbelt had a shallow side and a deep side with the front side of the deep sink having a wash board so if a resident wanted to use a spin drier, they could use it at the kitchen sink. It would be far harder to use a wringer washer at those sinks.

BTW, Greenbelt Laundry rooms had the early Hamilton Dryers.

 

[phillymatt53]

Wow!
When I was a child, my mom had that Easy Spindrier to wash our clothes in.
It facinated me watching her do the family laundry.
And boy could that agitator churn up the load of clothes!
Then in 1963 dad tossed it and got mom a GE Filter Flo automatic.
That GE lasted for about 17 years because the transmission crapped out.
By then I was working, and bought mom a top-of-the-line White Westinghouse machine.
The kind with the hidden "gentle" agitiator under the normal wash one.
After 10 years, the tranmission started leaking oil on the floor.

 

[kenmore58]

A few years ago, I rescued a never used Easy Spindrier from a trailer park in Peabody, Massachusetts. The guy that had it was a scraper and was hired to clean out a plumbing supply place. It was in the corner of the store. He said it was too nice to scrap and listed it on Craigslist. So I went and bought it. They really are an amazing machine.

The model I have is the exact same one as pictured in Driving Miss Daisy.

RON