Whirlpool Open House 1953 - 16mm

[gelaundry4ever]

belt drive

I did like the belt drive overall. I noticed that the direct drive did have a faster agitation and spin. No matter, the clothes still got clean.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Totally cool Cory. Thank you for these.

Whirlpool was huge in the laundry arena compared to GE.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Re#5: Isn't that demo washer great?! And of course there was the matching dryer. And you're correct, these are silent films, often the only copy made. But I do have some commercially produced films with soundtracks in the pipeline.

Re#8: The Benton Harbor / St. Joe facility was absolutely massive. When the highway was realigned in the mid-50's to avoid driving through the factory campus, they actually built the new road as a straight shot -over the top- of the facility (top left corner of the pic below). The 1953 film captures this mid-way through construction, where they had finished the first elevated portion (in Part 2 there's a still image of a firetruck, and in the background is the elevated road and staircase employees would use). But you can see in Part 1 (where the "day's production" of all the boxes lined up) that the road ends in dirt.

Don't bother google-mapping any of this. It's all gone.

View attachment 308714

I'm wondering if the Clyde facility has grown since then and through the decades including the 80s when the direct drives came out.

 

[agiflow]

Whirlpool was huge in the laundry arena compared to GE.

Well, that's because making washing machines was Whirlpool's primary business. After all, that's what they started as, as a washing machine manufacturer. General electric was much more diversified.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Well, that's because making washing machines was Whirlpool's primary business. After all, that's what they started as, as a washing machine manufacturer. General electric was much more diversified.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Clyde facility was huge during the direct drive era and GE was small potatoes even into the 90s when they adopted the dual action agitator compared to Whirlpool.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Well, that's because making washing machines was Whirlpool's primary business. After all, that's what they started as, as a washing machine manufacturer. General electric was much more diversified.

That may explain why the whirlpool direct drive was built and sold by the millions. They built the Maytag line years later until 2011.

 

[DADoES]

That may explain why the whirlpool direct drive was built and sold by the millions.

Millions ... that's a quaint way to state it! The classic belt-drives sold in similar numbers.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Millions ... that's a quaint way to state it! The classic belt-drives sold in similar numbers.

I wouldn't be surprised if Whirlpool eventually got connected to the internet later in the 201st century to build their website and research and develop more laundry products.