IN 1939, the Westinghouse Electric Corporation commissioned a fifty-five-minute film about the Middletons, a fictional Indiana family who travel to the New York World’s Fair, where they are dazzled by the company’s futuristic vision of “a new Tomorrow.” It’s a consumer paradise that includes everything from television to a photoelectric bike called the Phantocycle to a towering voice-controlled robot named Elektro. The movie’s highlight is a staged dishwashing competition between “Mrs. Modern,” who is armed with a new Westinghouse dishwasher, and “Mrs. Drudge,” who works furiously at a sink. To no one’s surprise, the gleaming labor-saving device wins.
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