Impact of Home Appliances in Morrison's Paradise

In Paradise by Toni Morrison, there is a paragraph that connects the prosperity of a small town with impact of home appliances.

     The garden battles – won, lost, still at bay – were mostly over.  They had raged for ten years, having begun suddenly in 1963, when there was time.  The women who were in their twenties when Ruby was founded, in 1950, watched for thirteen years an increase in bounty that had never entered their dreams.  They bought soft toilet paper, used washcloths instead of rags, soap for the face alone or diapers only.  In every Rudy household appliances pumped, hummed, sucked, purred, whispered and flowed.  And there was time:  fifteen minutes when no firewood needed tending in a kitchen stove; one whole hour when no sheets or overalls needed slapping or scrubbing on a washboard; ten minutes gained becuase no rug needed to be beaten, no curtains pinned on a stretcher; two hours because food lasted and therefore could be picked or purchased in greater quantity.  Their husbands and sons, tickled to death and no less proud than the women, translated a five-time markup, a price per pound, bale, or live weight, into Kelvinators as well as John Deere; into Philco as well as Body by Fisher.  The white porcelain layered over steel, the belts, valves and Bakelite parts gave them deep satisfaction,  The humming, throbbing and softly purring gave the women time.  


Toni Morrison, Paradise (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998) p. 93.