2004 Bridges Summer Research Report Katherine French-Fuller Latin American Studies "Fuzzy Logic: The Washing Machine, Women and Class in 1960s-1980s Chile"

During this past summer (or I should say winter!) I spent two months conducting research for my thesis project in Santiago, Chile. The goal of my project is to seek to better understand how the arrival of the washing machine in Chilean society, starting in the 1950s, changed women’s lives. Upon further research I discovered that the washing machine also emphasized class difference, impacted social relations and is an interesting reflection on patterns of consumption during the different political administrations of Eduardo Frei Montalvo, Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity (UP) and the Pinochet dictatorship. While in Santiago I looked at advertising, examined censuses, gained access to industrial records, examined other relevant scholarly research and conducted oral testimonies.

I decided to start the research process by looking at advertising in the major newspapers and women’s magazines starting in the 1940s. These were archived at the national library in downtown Santiago. As I lived far away in the swanky neighborhood of Vitacura, I spent at least two hours a day traveling on the very loud (and yellow) micros to reach the bustling centro. Looking at advertising in the newspaper El Mercurio as well as magazines such as Ercilla, Paula, Paloma and Zig-Zag ended up being the most time consuming activity, but yielded little information. There were very few advertisements for washing machines, especially in women’s magazines. Most of the ads and many of the most interesting ads were found in El Mercurio. Generally they tried to entice women (and therefore men) to buy washing machines by saying that it would be a time-saver, a labor-saver, that it was new and modern, it was better than an untrustworthy washer woman and generally emphasized how miraculous the technology was. (However, the first semi-automatic machines did require a bit of labor as they would not spin dry. Sometimes the washers included wringers or presses, but many times the woman still had to wring the clothes dry with their own hands.) What was most interesting about the advertising was what was absent. In other words, the fact that washing machines weren’t heavily advertised, especially in women’s magazines, while objects such as refrigerators, TVs and even detergents had a much heavier presence shows that the purchase of washing machines simply wasn’t a priority.

I next took a look at census records to see what sort of information they would have about the disappearance of washer women, how quickly families bought washing machines as compared to other consumer durables and appliances and accessibility to water and electricity which might impact families’ abilities to purchase washing machines. This task proved to be more challenging than looking at advertising on microfiche (although I was considerably less dizzy). Although the computer records of the national library claimed to have copies of various censuses, many times the wrong record was retrieved. This proved frustrating and slowed the research process down. The Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas (INE) also did not have complete copies of all of the censuses or other relevant industrial records, especially during the UP government. Some of the most important statistics I found were that in 1980 40 percent of urban Chilean families had washing machines (this was the first year the Chilean government started asking about washing machines) while 56 percent had refrigerators; in 1940 there were 23,802 washer women and in 1980 there were 13,669, a significant decrease; in 2002 85 percent of Santiago residents had washing machines. In other words, considering that the washing machine was introduced to Chile around 1940, it took about 40 years for 40 percent or urban families (rural ownership rates are still much lower) to own this labor and time saving device. These statistics made me realize that this study would not focus on the 1950s and 1960s as I had originally thought, but would most likely begin in the 1960s and stretch into the 1980s.

I then contacted one of the two remaining Chilean companies that still make washing machines today and also made them in the 1950s. The company, CTI, produces both the Fensa and Mademsa brands in a plant in Maipú, a suburb of Santiago that is located on the complete opposite side of Santiago to where I lived. Therefore, I had the fun experience of taking a colectivo, a sort of taxi that will take up to four passengers and will leave you at the closest major intersection of your destination. This is all for about $1.65 as compared to $0.50 for the bus and much more for a normal taxi. Anyway, Fensa bought out a failed Mademsa in 1975 to form CTI, which now also produces refrigerators, space heaters, hot water heaters and stoves. They have also exported small numbers of machines for the past thirty years. The storage closet at the factory contained many of the memorias or annual reports that gave me insight to not only how the company survived over the years, but what some of their annual production numbers were. I also discovered that in 1972, during the UP government, workers took over the factory and after the coup the factory was the scene of a violent shoot out between the army and militants.

Lastly, I spoke with upper-middle class, upper class and working class women about their experiences with the washing machine. Through these interviews and personal observations I discovered some of the most interesting and unique details about the washing machine in Chile. I contacted interviewees through personal contacts, the municipalities of Las Condes and ANECAP (an association for domestic workers).

The first thing I noticed is that Chilean washing machines are completely different in appearance than American ones. They are general smaller, made out of plastic and use a rotating drum to agitate the clothes rather than a center agitator. Most European and Asian washing machines use the same technology. Large American washers and dryers like Whirlpool are making inroads into the Chilean market, but are extremely expensive (about $650 for a washer versus about $200 for the cheapest domestic automatic or $110 for a domestic semi-automatic) and larger than the needs of most Chilean families. Therefore only the wealthiest Chileans who believe foreign imports are implicitly better or have particularly large families have bought these machines.

Chileans also keep their machines in very different parts of their homes. In apartments they are generally kept in the logia, or a small covered outside space immediately adjacent to the kitchen. Only 4.5 percent of Chileans today have dryers because they use up a lot of electricity, which is relatively expensive in Chile and because the washers nowadays spin the clothes practically dry (much more so than the washers here). As such, one of the biggest problems for families is deciding where to hang the wash to dry in a crowded apartment with three kids.
I also discovered that the entire wash process seemed to take much longer than in the US. First of all, the washers had far more options than the standard washer here that divide your options in colors, whites, bright colors, delicates and permanent press. There the washers can be programmed to take into account fabric, level of dirtiness and color, while the size of the load is automatically weighed by the tecnología fuzzy, standard in all machines for the past ten years.

Many times more privileged housewives prefer to operate the washing machine themselves because they believed their domestic help will break the machine, not sort the laundry correctly or not know how to operate the washer. Twenty or thirty years ago a middle class housewife would probably never have considered washing most clothes by hand. However, the housewife is willing to allow the maid to take clean clothes out of the washer, hang them up to dry and then iron all of the clothes (as she has always done). Ironing is a very important part of the entire process as everything from underwear to sheets to pants are normally ironed. This is generally because clothes are wrinklier after air-drying than if they were dried in the dryer. Also standards of appearance seem to be higher in metropolitan Chile.

The maids I spoke with especially noted how much easier their life was with washing machines, both in their own homes and those of their employers. Although their general workloads did not decrease — expectations of cleanliness have increased, and they are expected to be doing other chores while the load is washing — the drudgery and heavy work of washing clothes by hand has mostly been eliminated. They also noted that this technological innovation has also facilitated the entry of men into this once entirely female only profession/task. Depending upon which generation a man belongs to, he might be in charge of doing the family’s wash or at least be willing to operate a machine if there is not a woman around to do it for him.

Thus, the short time I spent in Chile enabled me to answer almost all of the research questions I initially had or otherwise demonstrated how the project would have to be restructured. While I found it more difficult to find overall national production and import figures than I thought, the amount of other information I gathered was much richer and in the end will make for a much more interesting thesis.