Tumble clothes dryer
Secadora de ropa de tambor
- Date
- 1938 (precedente en 1799) · confidence medium
- Place
- Devils Lake, North Dakota, United States
- Credited to
- J. Ross Moore
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A machine with a rotating drum and gas-heated air that dries wet laundry without hanging it. Moore built the first for his wife, who could not hang washing outdoors in Dakota winters.
A precedent is Pochon's perforated-drum 'ventilator' (France, 1799) and there are other 19th-century hand-cranked models; Moore patented the gas dryer in 1938 and it was not marketed until after the war.
What it led to
- laundry drying in any climate and at any time
- domestic laundry with washer and dryer
- heat-pump dryers with humidity sensors