Kenmore round front design - pictures

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atuten

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Dec 27, 2006
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Hi all. Here are the pictures of the washing machine I posted about earlier. I am interested to know as much as possible about this unit. It is an automatic and it is a bolt down as it's bolted to a large block in the basement and likely has been sitting there all these years. I did send high res. pictures to the webmaster email address. You're welcome to post them on the site if you like.

This unit will be for sale as I have no need for it. If anybody is interested, please email me. It's in great shape, very clean. I only had to wipe a bit of dust off it today to photograph.

Thanks for your time!

12-28-2006-20-38-55--Atuten.jpg
 
World's first top loader automatic

That's Kenmore's first automatic washer(1947)-I believe it's also the first top load automatic washer ever made.
 
Oh, pooh-Nobody wants that old thing here!

(Ducks and runs)

Didn't some one post a link to a very interesting article or paper regarding the development of this machine and the marketing decisions involved in introducing Sears customers to the automatic washer. I should have saved a copy of that and didn't (dunce hat time!).

Seriously, I am sure someone is warming up the engine on a large truck as I type this. I have seen one of these ONCE.
 
The article about the WP/Sears relationship has to be one the best success stories in the appliance business.

From the reading it seems WP was trying to perfect the wringer machines while many companies were already making automatics.

It seemed at the time the mechanisms were rock solid, though the execution of the final product was not polished.

Why did WP/KM early autos have such a deep opening into the wash tub? It seemed like an afterthought. Funny too how the first bolt down had an nice round opening to the D shape that they became so known for? Aerated spray??

Funny this company (WP) was never the darlings of wall street, yet they made everyone involved with them a nice dividend.

Who would have ever thought that of all the competiton they had through the years, Whirly and GE would be the last of the Giants?

Whirly has been an extremely shrewd company, deserving or not.
 
Thanks for all those cool pictures, guys. I love those bolt down Kenmores with their big round openings. They almost looked like a wringer washer, sans the wringer.

Ross, yours looks like an older model...maybe the very first. I remember my aunt had a bolt down Kenmore in her basement that looked more like Atuten's but had the agitator in Ross' machine in it.
 
Hi Rich. Perhaps you can make it to Tucson Wash In March 23, 24, and 25. My Kenmore bolt down is one of the many interesting machines you would see.

Ross
 
Still For Sale?

How much are you asking for the washing machine. I am very interested. 717-468-8050
 
We had one too

My mom's first washer was the 1948 Bendix. With a couple of main bearing replacements, it washed for a family of six for many years. One of our friends had the 1947 Kenmore, and when they moved, gave it to us around 1964 or so. The Bendix also being a bolt-down, was removed and the Kenmore installed, it had outlasted the Bendix, it's previous owners also had a family of six. It was like a wringer, in that the top lid removed completely, no hinges.

Out cousins in Lake County, CA had an AMP. My dad convinced them that it was cheaper to go to the laundramat (electric water heater), and they gave my dad the AMP. So the Kenmore was removed and the AMP installed. We got the use of 3 late 1940's machines! One reason the AMP lasted longer than the others is that only washed for a family of 4.

Of course I wish I had all of the old machines that I watched over the years.

After the demise of the AMP, my dad bought a dd kenmore which lasted until the 1990's

Martin
 
The squared off area on later Whirlpool/Kenmore machines is used to provide a surface for the snubber to work against. The snubber is a hard white rubber block that dampens the tub oscillations. Crude, but it works well enough.
 
I remember these machines from my youth. I think this machine may have had "hard" solenoids to activate the agitation and spin as the more refined and quiet wig-wag concept had not yet been developed. But, I could be mistaken.
 
No, the solenoids were for the suds-saver diverter valve, the machine had the wig-wag from the very beginning.

Just to be sure the correct information is given out here, this washer was the first of the belt-drive Whirlpool design to hit the market, but it was no where near the first top loader.

As Greg said Blackstone was first and it was before the war, followed by GE, Frigidaire, Coronado, Launderall all in 1947. The Sears unit first showed up in 1948.
 
Welcome Atuten

We know these great machines from Ross's posts.

Brett--THAT ARTICLE-- it's amazing, so long, and interesting and perfectingly satisfying. Maybe tomorrow, I'll post the highlights, unless someone beats me to it. Here's just a tease of what's in there. The bosses were making all of the engineers work on a SQUEEZER model, when behind locked doors, a few radicals were perfecting the boltdown which of course spins rather than squeeezes. The bosses actually thought the squeezer instead of a spinner was a better choice. The secret model was known as "The Jeep". They don't say why.

Maybe because it would charge around the basement if not bolted down. Of course, the squeezer lost and the bosses came a beggin' to see the Jeep!
 
Agi, go check out the article

it needs a re-read--not clear if WP preceeds KM. Looks like Sears put out machines before Whirlpool manufactured under its own label. The dates are all in there but there's a ton of material. and you'll love it. The print's small; just zoom it, dude!
 
"No, the solenoids were for the suds-saver diverter valve, the machine had the wig-wag from the very beginning."

Thanks Robert. I just remember that the one our neighbors had made solenoid-type clunks while it was operating. I really didn't observe it very much back then.
 
Yes Sears brought out its first automatic in 1947

it was manufactured by the 1900 Washing Machine Corp. Then in 1948 1900 brought out the same machine under the Whirlpool name. The same thing happened with the first automatic dryers for both brands, the Kenmore was introduced in 1949 and the Whirlpool in 1950. If you notice this practice happens still today, for example the Calypso came out first as a Kenmore then about a year later as a Whirlpool. The Kenmore HE3T's came out first then the Duet's. The Kenmore Oasis was first then the Whirlpool Cabrio. FYI, 1900 Washing Machine Corp. origianlly made washers under their own name and then about 1930 started making a model called the Whirlpool. Eventually that name was used on all their washers and then became the name of the company in 1950.
PATRICK COFFEY
 
Though the history of WP traces it's beginnings when they were the Upton machine company begun in 1911 with very early ties to sears and later merged with 1900. Whirly has a pretty interesting history.
 

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