The Most Useful Appliances of the Last 100 Years

Few college students can survive without an electric tea kettle, which can make hot water within a minute. Perhaps not surprisingly, the appliance was created by British tea drinkers in the late 19th century.

After many attempts to create more efficient and faster electric kettles, the Swan Company released the first with a built-in heating element in 1922. This kind of kettle boiled the water until it completely evaporated unless manually turned off. The first automatic electric kettle was invented by the Russell Hobbs company in 1955.

Many people prefer to drink their fruits and vegetables because they taste better. And instead of buying juices that are usually packed with sugar, they can blend them. In 1922, Stephen Poplawski, and American inventor of Polish descent, created an appliance that used spinning blades at the bottom to process fruits and vegetables. He received a patent for the blender in 1932.

Sewing became a lot faster, not to mention easier, when Singer introduced the Athena 2000 in 1975. It was the world’s first electronic sewing machine. The device can do more complicated tricks, such as sewing decorative stitches in different shapes. It was all made possible by a tiny chip that had more than 8,000 transistors.

General Electric introduced in 1967 the first electronic oven control. It was the start of what later became a revolution among all kinds of household appliances. Microprocessors were added to them to eliminate the need for human supervision as much as possible.

Electric appliances are also portable electronic devices, so the smartphone fits in that category. And it’s the ultimate appliance. Most people may think the iPhone was the first smartphone, but in reality it was invented in 1992, long before people even started using the term “smartphone.”

It combines many devices in one — a phone, a GPS, a calendar, alarm clock, planner, answering machine, a personal computer, and a TV. If you had to give up your phone or wallet, which one would you choose?