Newton, Iowa: The Washing Machine Capital of the World

Newton, Iowa, is a classic American company town, built around a single invention that changed domestic life in the twentieth century. The story begins in eighteen ninety-three, when a group of local investors including a farmer's son named Frederick Louis Maytag formed a company to manufacture threshing machine attachments. Because farm equipment sales died in winter, they looked for something to sell year-round, and in nineteen oh seven launched their first clothes washer, called the Pastime.

Maytag bought out his partners, put his name on the company, and never looked back. By mid-century the Maytag plant employed thousands in a city of fifteen thousand, and Newton called itself the Washing Machine Capital of the World. Then in two thousand six, Whirlpool acquired Maytag and closed the Newton factory, eliminating nearly two thousand jobs almost overnight.

The loss was so sudden and so total that reporters came from around the country to write about the hollowing-out of a company town. Newton has spent the years since rebuilding, first around a wind turbine blade factory that closed in twenty twenty-one, and now on a more varied local economy.