Electric washing machines, first introduced in the United States in 1925, significantly reduced the amount of time spent washing a given amount of clothes, yet the average amount of time households spent washing clothes increased after 1925.

Basically, this is the key sentence of the entire question: the amount spent to wash 1kg of clothes was being reduced by washing machines. Of course, now the machine works for us. However, the average amount of time spent washing clothes OVERALL increased. This means that households washed MORE clothes. The washing cycle was shortly


This increase is partially accounted for by the fact that many urban households had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries. But the average amount of time spent washing clothes also increased for rural households with no access to professional laundries.

In urban areas, this is explained by the fact that before the clothes were sent to professional laundries. Now thanks to washing machines this did not happen anymore. However, the same happened in the rural areas.

This was due to washing machines which accounted as a common factor

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the time spent washing clothes increased in rural areas?

A People with access to an electric washing machine typically wore their clothes many fewer times before washing them than did people without access to electric washing machines.

The right answer we can conclude from the stem. The washing cycle was short

B Households that had sent their clothes to professional laundries before 1925 were more likely than other households to purchase an electric washing machine when they became available.

What happened BEFORE 1925 is not of our concern

C People living in urban households that had previously sent their clothes to professional laundries typically owned more clothes than did people living in rural households.

Clothes owned is out of scope

D The earliest electric washing machines required the user to spend much more time beside the machine than do modern electric washing machines.

The comparison between washing machines models is out of scope

E In the 1920s and 1930s the proportion of rural households with electricity was smaller than the proportion of urban households with electricity.

The proportion of households is out of scope.

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