Electric clothes iron
Plancha eléctrica
- Date
- 1882 · confidence high
- Place
- New York, United States
- Credited to
- Henry W. Seely (1882 patent); improved by Earl Richardson
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A resistance-heated electric iron patented by Henry W. Seely in 1882, replacing irons heated on a fire. Early models weighed about seven kilos and heated slowly.
Seely's electric iron was impractical; Earl Richardson (Ontario, California) developed the hot-point iron in 1905.
What it led to
- ironing without coals or smoke
- domestic electric iron with thermostat (1920s) and steam (1926)
- electric household appliances and changes in women's domestic work