This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
I have no doubt that the secret of William H. Voss's success was his mother, that is, if mothers back in 1875 were at all like they are now.
William Voss and his parents came from Germany to settle near Davenport in 1870. He showed an early aptitude for mechanical work, becoming a cabinet maker and a skilled wood carver whose work was much in demand.
But at home, he felt sorry for his mother, whose drudgery around the house contrasted with his own work, especially those long, hot, laborious Monday wash days. He could, of course, have helped out with the wash, but it was easier to retreat to his workshop and begin thinking. Thinking led to an idea, the idea to a plan, and the plan to the first crude wooden automatic washing machine: a rocking mechanism inside a tub, operated by hand.
Voss took his washing machine home to his mother, who tried it out the very next wash day. Much to her astonishment, she finished the entire wash by the middle of the forenoon, and could have taken the rest of the day off to sit on the porch and knit, but no. Instead, she did what a mother almost has to do: she made the rounds bragging to the neighbors about what her son William had done. Soon, she was the envy of the neighborhood, both for her son and her washing machine.
Poor William had no choice. Everyone wanted a washing machine, and soon, his little Davenport shop, still called "W. H. Voss, Wood Carver and Cabinet Maker, Scroll Sawing, Turning, All Kinds of Repairing Done," was turning out washers for ten dollars each.
It marked the end of the wood carving for William Voss. By 1901, the Voss company had grown to include his brothers and was incorporated as the Voss Brothers Manufacturing Company. That same year, the Ocean Wave washer was patented, the first of many modern features such as the Floto-Plane Agitator. Voss machines became gasoline engine powered, and then turned to electrical motors.
By 1927, William Voss and his brothers had turned out more than a million washing machines sold around the world, which must be some kind of a record for a dutiful son helping with the wash.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
