Washing Machine Spin Cycle

The screeching sound of clothes spinning into a pile of sweet smelling freshness is a gift unto mankind that is so unparalleled it is must have been brought down from the heavens by the archangel Michael himself. It is hard to believe that there was once a world where we wore out clothes for weeks without washing them, and the mud and sweat would become our most intimate companion. To clean clothing it is necessary to rub and flex the cloth to break apart solids and help the soap penetrate. At first this was done by pounding or rubbing the clothing with rocks in a river, and later developed into the corrugated wash board. In Roman times a person would whiten clothing by rubbing it against a rock while letting soap lie on it. The soap was made of animal fat. Removal of soap and water from the clothing after washing was originally a separate process. The modern process of water removal by spinning did not come into use until electric motors were developed. Spinning requires a constant high-speed power source, and was originally done in a separate device known as an extractor. A load of washed clothing would be transferred from the wash tub to the extractor basket, and the water spun out. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=112531