The invention of the washing machine is credited to Jacob Christian Schäffer, a German inventor who created the first washing machine in 1767. Schäffer designed a rotating drum washer that used paddles attached to an arm that moved around the inside of a tub to agitate the clothes and water. The rotation of the drum would then spin out the water from the clothes.
Prior to Schäffer’s invention, people used washboards, which were made up of corrugated ridges or grooves on a flat surface. The user would rub wet clothes against the ridges to clean them. This method was labor-intensive and time consuming and it was not until Schäffer’s invention that laundry became more efficient and effective.
Schäffer’s invention did not become popular until many years later when Henry Sidgier developed an improvement on it in 1851. He added gears and pulleys to drive the agitator arms, making them move faster and more efficiently than before. This innovation made washing machines much more practical for everyday use.
Since then, many improvements have been made on this basic design by different inventors over time, resulting in modern washing machines as we know them today.