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As the history of the steamer is unthinkable without mentioning the raft, so the history of the iron will be incomplete without a brief account of its ancestors. The oldest of them, archaeologists recognize flat, heavy stone. A little more wet clothing was spread on its relatively even surface, pressed on top with another stone and left to dry completely. As a result, some of the folds disappeared.

The ancient Romans stroked their tunics and togas with a metal hammer: wrinkles were simply knocked out by repeated blows. 

Read also: https://www.bestadvisers.co.uk/steam-iron

Stroking, then heat

The fact that the linen is easier to smooth out if you use a warm metal, humanity learned almost as long as the mechanical methods of ironing. So, in the IV. BC er in Greece invented a method of ironing chitons and tunics with a heated metal rod. In the Middle Ages began to use a different device. It looked almost the same as a regular frying pan: hot coals were piled inside a cast-iron brazier with a handle and began to be led around the clothes by a “frying pan”. It is clear that this “iron” did not differ inconvenience and safety: it was awkward to work with it, sparks and small embers every now and then flew out of the brazier, leaving opalines and holes on clothes.

However, before the discovery of the saving properties of electricity, there was still a long wait, so all that remained was to improve the same principle: heating the metal with coals inside or fire outside.

"Our iron has flared up ..."

In the middle of the last century, it was possible to meet the so-called "coal" or "brass" irons. They looked like small stoves: heated birch coals were put inside the case. For better traction, holes were made on the sides, sometimes the iron was even supplied with a pipe. To re-ignite the cooled coals, they blew into the holes or swung the iron from side to side. Since coal irons were heavy, ironing turned into a real strength exercise. Later, instead of coals, a red-hot cast-iron pig was put inside the iron.

On the way to the electric iron

At the end of the XIX century began to produce gas irons. The principle of their work was the same as that of gas stoves: the iron was heated by burning gas. In the case of such an iron was inserted a metal tube connected to the gas cylinder by the other end, and a pump was located on the iron lid. With the help of a pump, the gas was pushed into the inside of the iron, where, burning, heated the ironing sole. It is easy to imagine how dangerous such irons were: gas leaks often caused gas leaks, with all the ensuing consequences: explosions, fires, and victims.

At the beginning of the 20th century, safer, rather than gas, alcohol iron became more and more popular. His ads could be found in magazines in 1913. It was arranged according to the principle of a kerosene llama: the surface of the iron was heated with alcohol, which was poured inside and set on fire. The advantage of such an iron was that it warmed up quickly, weighed not very much, it could be used as a road variant. That's just such an iron cost, which is called “like a cast-iron bridge”, and to be precise, as a small flock of sheep or a good cow ...

Birthday of the electric iron can be considered June 6, 1882. It was on this day that the American Henry Sealy patented the electric iron he invented.

The first electric iron in the world had an electric arc between the carbon electrodes, to which a direct current was applied.

The early models of electric irons, like gas, were unsafe (due to imperfections of the design, they were severely shocked) and were capricious in everyday life, so after 10 years, in 1892, General Electric and Crompton & Co modernized the electric iron, starting use in its design heating coil.

Such a spiral, hidden inside the iron body in front of its sole, was reliably isolated from the body. The irons stopped beating their owners, and it became safe to use them.

The new design of irons was so successful that it is still used in new models of irons to this day: for the twentieth century, it has changed little. The entire past century, the efforts of manufacturers have been directed only to a slight improvement in individual elements of the device.

So, in the thirties of the 20th century, an important element appeared in the design of an electric iron - a thermostat that began to monitor the temperature and turn off the heating coil when the required level of heating of the sole was reached. And at the end of the seventies, the soles of the irons themselves changed: they finally ceased to be metal and became glass-ceramic.