Here’s a fantastic 9-minute video by Hans Rosling on how the washing machine revolutionized living standards.

A personal note: I returned on Saturday from my cottage in Minaki, Canada. My grandfather built it in 1922 when he was 67 years old. We didn’t put in electric power until about 1957 or 1958. But even after we had electricity, we didn’t have running water. One of my jobs was to haul a few buckets of water a day from the lake. So my mother did hand-washing all summer just as some of the women in the video do. I now use a washing machine but it’s at a laundromat a few hundred yards away.

What I love about Rosling is his passion for helping really poor people do better.

HT to Patrick T. Peterson and Jeffrey Tucker.