First home show in '39 boasted steam irons

In Depression-era Seattle, would-be homeowners were thinking more about "obtainable" than "sustainable," and the only "green" that mattered was in their thin wallets.

COMING UP

SEATTLE HOME SHOW 2004

WHEN: Today through Feb. 22. Hours: Saturdays 10 a.m.- 9 p.m., Sundays 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., Monday 10 a.m.- 8:30 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m., Friday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

WHERE: Seahawks Exhibition Center, 1000 Occidental Ave. S. (between Safeco Field and Seahawks Stadium)

ADMISSION: $9; seniors (60-plus) $5 weekdays; kids 7-15, $3.

PARKING: Seahawks Exhibition Center Garage, Safeco Field Garage, Seahawks Stadium north lot and Union Station garage. Free parking in designated areas for vehicles with four or more people. Free Metro shuttles on weekends and Monday from Park & Ride lots at Northgate, South Bellevue and South Renton.

MORE INFORMATION: www.SeattleHomeShow.com

But in 1939, after a decade of malaise, builders were -- in that famous newsreel phrase -- "on the march!" And they offered every modern convenience at a budget price. Soon the state's Realtors were proclaiming hopefully, "Things look fine for '39!"

So it was an opportune time for Seattle to launch its ambitious National Housing Exposition of the Pacific Northwest.

The show featured 100 exhibitors and a $5,000 model home with two bedrooms and "a well-planned kitchen, dinette and utility room (to) assure the housewife of a cheerful workshop," as the Post-Intelligencer reported.

Now called the Seattle Home Show, the exhibition has a lot more pizazz, but it has remained true to its original purpose -- to serve as matchmaker between consumers and the latest products and designs. Home Show 2004, which opens today, will have more than 600 displays of home and garden products and five model homes.

Sixty-five years after its debut, the home show is celebrating its "60th anniversary" -- so-called because wartime shortages caused the show to go dark from 1943-47.

If life today isn't as futuristic as once envisioned, it's still laughably ahead of the "modern" era that ushered in the inaugural show. A search through Post-Intelligencer stacks reveals these news items from March 1939:

Telephones are now so essential, homeowners are starting to have more than one, and to site them as carefully as they would an electric light. Headline: "Scurrying to Telephone is Old-Fashioned Today."

Here's an innovation that'll leave you flat: Homemakers can now buy an iron that's "quite similar to the usual electric flat iron," except that it can hold a pint of water so wrinkles are steamed-out without the pre-ironing fuss of sprinkling and rolling.

There's a new toaster on the market that is "completely automatic," able to handle all sizes of bread and to toast to any degree of crispness.

With today's new, high-test laundry soaps, you can just presoak, then wash "by whatever method you prefer -- machine or rubbing on the board. ... Boiling is no longer considered a necessary part of the washing routine, except occasionally for pieces like plain, white hand towels and dish towels."

Ah, the good old days. Just thinking about all that labor is enough to wear a body out. Time to languish in a fiberglass, jetted spa with gazebo surround and contemplate the innovations at the 2004 home show:

European-style washers that get clothes cleaner than conventional appliances, with faster spinning and no central agitator, allowing a whiter, brighter wash without bleach.

A Sharp, high-speed oven that combines the speed of a microwave and the browning of a convection oven, with 84 settings for pinpoint accuracy. Want to bake pizza? Press the "Pizzas" setting and resume soaking in aforementioned spa.

Environmentally friendly products such as renewable bamboo flooring, site preparation that protects salmon habitat and a spray that breaks down the molecular structure of odor-causing chemicals.

Hold the phone! You can even get decking made from recycled plastic milk jugs. We can only imagine how our forebears would greet that development.

"What?! You mean the milkman delivers the milk in plastic bottles? What a world, what a world."

More headlines and info from Pioneer Square, Sodo.