I'm sure all that technology helped, but I think the free time was more of a result of good union jobs, just a plethora of good private sector jobs, and reasona

I'm sure all that technology helped, but I think the free time was more of a result of good union jobs, just a plethora of good private sector jobs, and reasonable housing. These good jobs allowed us to buy food, live where we wanted, take vacations, take on risk, have weekends off, etc. The technology that really saved time was modern food procurement(the supermarket, or food that was ready to bring home with a short walk to a few stores. And women, they wanted to work. I remember my mom had a lot of time on her hands, but it wasen't due to appliances. When she got a career, she was happy at first, but then missed all the free time she had when she was a housewife.