Posted 2 years ago
fortapache
(3421 items)
No more having to heat up your sad iron on a hot stove. Just plug it in and it heats right up. It still wieghs a ton as it is almost solid metal. But it does have a wooden handle which is easier on the hand than the earlier metal handles. These must have come out just before the electric irons similar to those used now.
This is a Hotpoint iron which was made by Pacific Electric Heating Company. So many companies with a similar I am not finding information about the company. The plug isn't a standard like the waffle iron plug. I am not even sure if this is AC or DC or both. There is a thumb rest, it does not seem to have any use other than a place for the thumb.
I have another like it but no thumb rest. I am sure no one will want to miss that.
It just screams “Misery”!
I’m imagining ironing every last thing that I just labored to wash and hang on the clothesline…..no permanent-press anything yet…gotta push this heavy thing around now…..thank goodness they provided a thumb rest!
A very serviceable iron, those old heavy ones could really remove wrinkles without expending too much energy - great post fort
Watchsearcher, I'm totally with ya. >8-0
fortapache, A'ight.
I think I might be able to shed some light on this. This piece certainly did so for me, anyway (paragraph breaks my edit for ease of reading):
*snip*
Earl H. Richardson was a meter reader for the Ontario Power Company in the early 1900’s. In his spare time, he experimented with electrifying flat irons. Designing a small, lighter weight model (flatirons could weigh 5-10 pounds each), he convinced his company to generate power all day every Tuesday (ironing day) so power customers could use his new iron. He reasoned that if enough electric irons were in use, customers would demand more power and the high rates would be reduced. It worked.
By 1904, he left the power company and started up the Pacific Electric Heating Company on Euclid Avenue just below the railroad tracks to manufacture electric irons.
A major problem was soon identified: the iron got too hot in the center of the ironing plate. Richardson asked his wife Mary for advice (!). She suggested that he make an iron with more heat at the point for easier pressing around buttonholes, ruffles and pleats. He fabricated this new improved version and gave several to local laundresses to try for one week. When he returned, they refused to part with “the iron with the hot point”.
In 1905, he made and sold more electric irons under the “Hotpoint” name than any other company in America.
*snip*
https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8qc027s/entire_text/
Thus, the origins of the Hotpoint name. :-)
Dunno if this one is the same model as yours, but it cites two patents:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1173867081/vintage-antique-hotpoint-iron-pacific
Our boy Earl the Pearl had more than a few patents to his name, but I managed to run down the two patents at that etsy listing:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US792792
https://patents.google.com/patent/US809529
D'oh! If I could only read.
You think your iron is labeled "Hoywint."
Dunno for sure, bruh, but I used edit to take a closer look at it. I suspect it's actually Hotpoint. It's got the little tail running under the last part of the name like in this ad:
https://www.hotpoint.com/images/graphic_hotpoint_history_1.jpg
https://www.hotpoint.com/hotpoint-history/
Thank you very much Watchsearcher and Newfld. It seems you have to think about the alternatives at the time so this was all that bad.
Thank you very much keramikos. That was a lot of investigating Thank you again.
fortapache, You're very welcome.
It was an education for me, because I actually had no idea that the origin of the name for a major maker of household appliances (Hotpoint) was based on a clothes iron.
As to the Pacific Electric Heating Company, the building that housed it no longer exists.
I'm going to use a tinyurl link to the wikipedia article about the Ontario State Bank Block, because it's one of those with underscore characters that the CW S&T software doesn't like:
*snip*
The Ontario State Bank Block was a historic commercial building located at 300 South Euclid Avenue in Ontario, California. The building, completed in 1887, was composed of three sections, and had a design which incorporated elements of the Eastlake and Queen Anne styles. The design included a corner turret, several gables along the roof line, and a variety of different window styles; it originally had three prominent oriel windows in the gable peaks above the bank's original section, and also had a set in the second section of the block. Decorative features included corbelled brickwork and carved wooden pilasters and brackets. The Ontario State Bank, which opened with the building, was the first bank in Ontario and an important early business center for the city. The building also housed several other shops, including Grand Palace Pavilion of Antiques,[2] Howell's Furniture and Hardware,[3][4] and E.H. Richardson's Pacific Electric Heating Company, which invented the Hotpoint electric iron and brought national attention to Ontario.
*snip*
https://tinyurl.com/23bmkh3t
The approximate modern location:
300 S Euclid Ave, Ontario, CA 91761
https://goo.gl/maps/NRMhapsFN7Uvr4M48
More clothes iron history:
http://www.oldandinteresting.com/antique-irons-smoothers-mangles.aspx
Whoops, if I'd read that wikipedia piece on the Ontario State Bank Block more carefully, I'd have seen that it gives the latitude and longitude, which places it here:
34°03'42.0"N 117°39'02.0"W
199-101 E Emporia St, Ontario, CA 91761
https://goo.gl/maps/KR8YznNQDk954TZq7