{"id":2455,"date":"2026-01-02T07:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/?p=2455"},"modified":"2025-12-15T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T16:20:12","slug":"a-century-of-cleaning-trivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/a-century-of-cleaning-trivia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Century of Cleaning Trivia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We love&nbsp;all things&nbsp;cleaning, so we thought&nbsp;we\u2019d&nbsp;share some cleaning trivia for&nbsp;National Trivia Day.&nbsp;Over the past hundred years, the way we clean our homes and public spaces has changed drastically.&nbsp;Here are just some of those ways:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The vacuum cleaner was invented in 1901. The earliest models were so large they had to be pulled by horses and parked outside buildings, with long hoses\u00a0snaking\u00a0in through the windows.\u00a0It\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0until the 1920s that portable electric vacuum\u00a0cleaners became a common household item.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Laundry\u00a0detergents\u00a0as we\u00a0know them\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0exist until World War II.\u00a0\u00a0Before then, people used soap flakes\u00a0or\u00a0scrubbing boards.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The first synthetic sponge was produced in 1941, but people have used natural sea sponges for cleaning for thousands of years.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Self-cleaning ovens were first introduced in the 1960s. They use high heat to burn off spills and splatters, making clean-up easier.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In the 1920s,\u00a0housework like cleaning and laundry\u00a0took about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rd.com\/list\/hygiene-100-years-ago\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">52 hours\u00a0a week<\/a>. Today, the\u00a0average American spends\u00a0around\u00a0six hours a week cleaning.\u00a0Cleaning innovations have come a long way to save us time and effort!\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whether&nbsp;you\u2019re&nbsp;a cleaning enthusiast or just love quirky facts,&nbsp;we hope&nbsp;you\u2019ve&nbsp;learned&nbsp;something new&nbsp;and will share&nbsp;cleaning trivia tidbits with friends and family. Who knows\u2014you might inspire&nbsp;others&nbsp;to tackle that messy closet or try a new cleaning hack!&nbsp;<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We love&nbsp;all things&nbsp;cleaning, so we thought&nbsp;we\u2019d&nbsp;share some cleaning trivia for&nbsp;National Trivia Day.&nbsp;Over the past hundred years, the way we clean our homes and public spaces has changed drastically.&nbsp;Here are just some of those ways:&nbsp; Whether&nbsp;you\u2019re&nbsp;a cleaning enthusiast or just love quirky facts,&nbsp;we hope&nbsp;you\u2019ve&nbsp;learned&nbsp;something new&nbsp;and will share&nbsp;cleaning trivia tidbits with friends and family. Who knows\u2014you might inspire&nbsp;others&nbsp;to tackle that messy closet or try a new cleaning hack!&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[850],"class_list":["post-2455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation","tag-cleaning-trivia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2457,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455\/revisions\/2457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cleaningiscaring.org\/wpd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}