Electric washing machines, first introduced in the United States in 1925, significantly reduced the amount of time spent washing a given amount of clothes, yet the average amount of time households spent washing clothes increased after 1925  This increase is partially accounted for by the fact that many urban households had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries
But the average amount of time spent washing clothes also increased for rural households with no access to professional laundries
People living in urban households that had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries typically owned more clothes than did people living in rural households.