Changing Technology in the American Kitchen: The Stove

We tend to think of our own times as the era when big changes in technology have taken place, but that isn’t the total picture. For instance, the kitchen in the United States made a huge leap closer to the one we know from the 1800’s to 1920. Of course, it has been transformed even more since then.

Until that time, the fireplace was the center of the one room home of the average American colonist; if a colonist was rich then his house had more than one room. In that era the blacksmith made all of the utensils and the hearth was still the center of the small home. The pots and pans were crafted of iron, durable, and were handed from one generation to another. These kitchen utensils were one of a kind.

Eighteen-thirty saw the mechanization of the kitchen take a giant step; the new cast-iron stove took over the job of the fireplace in cooking. When the 19th century passed and the 20th century started most homes were using the cast-iron stove. The stove kept the kitchen cleaner because it didn’t dirty the walls with soot; it was safer because it didn’t shoot hot sparks. Heat could be channeled to openings on top, to the oven, to a device that heated water, and to a warmer.

The disadvantages were that it still had to be tanked with wood or coal for fuel at intervals to keep it going, the whole surface of the stove got very hot, the heat was controlled with dampers and flues-a skill in itself. The ashes had to be removed and discarded. They experimented with six different fuels, but wood and coal were the popular ones.

The first gas stove arrived on the kitchen scene in 1850, though most people considered it too dangerous until about the 1880’s. More people got gas stoves during the 1890’s, but they lost their momentum because of explosions. Gas stoves gained some stride when piped gas became more widespread. Gas already lit streets and homes, but the incandescent lighting from electricity was the wave of the future. Thus, gas companies began to manufacture their own gas stoves and sell them.

The gas stove had the advantage of a smaller build than a cast-iron stove that needed more size to accommodate its fuel. Most of its surface stayed cooler; there weren’t any ashes to carry or wood to tote. No fire to tend. The gas stove competed with the wood/coal stoves at a two to one ratio by 1930.

In 1893 the Chicago Columbian Exposition featured an electric stove. At first electricity was very expensive and the electric stove was an electricity hog. Then in 1905 Albert Marsh invented a nickel-chrome alloy that fixed its other main problem-the heating elements until then lasted a short time. But it wasn’t until about the middle of the 1920’s that sixty percent of American homes used electricity, which had become more economical to use. After that the electric stove was able to compete with the gas stove on a more equal footing.