As a frequent purveyor of domestic dreams, Good Housekeeping magazine was on familiar ground in 1930 when it rhetorically asked its readers: "How many times have you wished you could push a button and find your meals deliciously prepared and served, and then as easily cleared away by the snap of a switch?" No such miraculous button or switch was in prospect, of course—not for cooking meals, cleaning the house, washing clothes, or any of the other homemaking chores that, by enduring custom, mainly fell to women.