One study of women in rural areas without electricity in the 1940s found that hand-washing and ironing a 38-pound laundry load required taking about 6,300 steps around the house, the well, the stove, and back to the house. After nine such loads, a woman would have walked the equivalent of a marathon. The electrification of housework reduced the ambulatory burden of that same laundry load by 90 percent.

An example of this comes from President Lyndon Johnson. As he explainedto an aide in 1960, “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convincethe lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t noticeyou picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’llempty his pockets for you.”25