A view of the Koravos family kitchen. Courtesy of Historic New England. Used on this site with permission.

THE 1957 KITCHEN from the Koravos family home in Andover, Massachusetts is the eye candy of the America’s Kitchens exhibition. Imagine original robin’s egg blue metal cabinets, stainless Westinghouse wall oven and cooktop, and canary yellow Formica counters with space-age patterning, all in near pristine condition. Mrs. Koravos preferred to cook in a second full kitchen in her basement, leaving this one on the first floor, which her guests would see, clean and clutter-free. According to curator and co-author Nancy Carlisle, show kitchens were popular in Greek- and Italian-American homes during the twentieth century. And take heart, retro renovators: Historic New England acquired the Koravos gem when a relative of co-author Melinda Nasardinov saw it posted on Craigslist!

Erica Donnis is an independent historian and museum consultant based in Burlington, Vermont.  This is her fifth and final vignette reviewing America’s Kitchens — the book and now,  a traveling national exhibition. Thank you, Erica!

Readers, click on the image below THREE times and it will get very big so that you can see the detail.

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Kitchen accessories from the trade catalogue “243 New Ideas for Your Kitchen", ca. 1955. Kalamazoo Stoves and Furnaces, Kalamazoo, Mich., publisher. Promised gift to Historic New England from a private collection. Used on this site with permission.

ACCORDING TO AMERICA’S KITCHENS, many of the things we take for granted today in our kitchens were introduced or became widely available in the 20th century, driven by emerging technologies, consumer demand, and commercial marketing that influenced people to update frequently and to buy the latest gadgets.  Electric stoves and refrigerators made their appearance in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.  The postwar years brought freezers, refrigerators with freezer compartments, and an explosion in small appliances like mixers, blenders, and waffle irons.  Tupperware, Saran Wrap, and plastic sandwich bags were introduced in the 40s and 50s, and the first countertop microwave oven arrived in the 60s.

Erica Donnis is an independent historian and museum consultant based in Burlington, Vermont. This is her fourth vignette from America’s Kitchens — the book and the traveling exhibition.

Click on the image below several times to enlarge and see the detail:

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“Kitchen No. 7,” from the trade catalogue “Kitchen Hints,” 1947. The Kitchen Maid Corporation, Andrews, Ind., publisher. Collection of Historic New England. Used on this site with their permission.

THE 20th CENTURY WAS A TIME OF RADICAL CHANGE in kitchen design. As Nancy Carlisle and Melinda Nasardinov describe in America’s Kitchens, a focus on efficiency in the early part of the century transformed kitchens into compact units, with matching cabinets and built-in appliances topped with spans of countertop. Efficient kitchens were meant to reduce workloads, but their small size and usual location in the back of the house also distanced cooks from their families and guests. The open floor plans of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s were a reaction against that isolation. As Nasardinov frames it, they “transformed kitchens from service spaces into social spaces” by blurring the boundaries between cooking, eating, and living areas.

Erica Donnis is an independent historian and museum consultant based in Burlington, Vermont.  This is the second installment of her week-long look at America’s Kitchens — both the book and the national traveling exhibition.

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