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This article examines how domestic technology, in particular the washing machine, radically altered daily patterns of living in twentieth-century Santiago, Chile. While scholars of American and European history have analyzed the impact of domestic technology, Latin Americanists have not. This article links the gendered nature of citizenship, twentiethcentury modernization drives, and the importance of consumption in economic development with how Chileans used and understood domestic technology in their daily lives. The impact of the washing machine is unrecognized and invisible in the minds of most Chileans despite the fact that the purchase of a washing machine released women from the backbreaking burden of hand washing, alternately reduced and enhanced class distinctions, and altered daily interactions between husbands, wives, and maids. Furthermore, these changes indicate how links between cleanliness and gender, and respectability and class underscore Chilean concepts of modernity and progress.
Few things seem more mundane, dull, and ignored in daily modern life than the washing machine. For most of us washing clothes is just another mindless chore that must be accomplished regularly and is not really something to which we give much thought. The washing machine, however, is more than just an appliance that washes clothes. Its arrival in Santiago, Chile, released women from days of backbreaking labor every week and, moreover, its purchase was a way for families of different social classes to participate in modernizing their country through the practice of consumption. In addition, the washing machine as an object was given symbolic meaning by its users, reflecting social realities specific to Santiago-such as gender identity, class structures, and consumption within the home-that were linked to larger historical processes.
While Europeanists and Americanists have delved into the historical impact and meaning of material culture, consumption, and technology, Latin Americanists have largely ignored these issues.1 Even as there has been a boom in literature studying the role of women in twentieth-century Chile, which has reconceptualized women's political participation and how political conflict was interpreted through gendered hierarchies, very little attention has been paid to how consumption has been a driving force for political and social change.2 Consumerism in late-twentieth-century Chile drastically altered the structure of daily living, and yet no one has analyzed issues of gendered consumption during this time period. This...