Retro Renovation » america’s kitchens

A 1957 Time Capsule Kitchen

Erica Donnis — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:00:27 +0000

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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Modern Kitchen “Wife-Savers”

Erica Donnis — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:00:50 +0000

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:

Mid-Century Kitchen Design THE 20th CENTURY WAS A TIME OF RADICAL CHANGE in...
A 1957 Time Capsule Kitchen THE 1957 KITCHEN from the Koravos family home in Andover,...
The Gropius Kitchen THE AMERICA’S KITCHENS EXHIBITION profiles the sleek, black and white...

Mid-Century Kitchen Design

Erica Donnis — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:00:46 +0000

“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.

A 1957 Time Capsule Kitchen THE 1957 KITCHEN from the Koravos family home in Andover,...
The Gropius Kitchen THE AMERICA’S KITCHENS EXHIBITION profiles the sleek, black and white...
Modern Kitchen “Wife-Savers” ACCORDING TO AMERICA’S KITCHENS, many of the things we...

Home Sweet Kitchen: All this Week

pam kueber — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:00:30 +0000

THE MID-CENTURY KITCHEN: It encapsulates so much about American culture of the time, including modern design, space-age technologies, and postwar consumerism. All this week at RetroRenovation.com, we’ll be taking a look at the mid-century kitchen and its place in the history of America’s Kitchens. Leading each day’s kitchen stories will be my good friend Erica Donnis, an independent historian and museum consultant based in Burlington, Vermont. She recently visited the America’s Kitchens exhibit and will be bringing us spotlights on design and technology — and a couple of fabulous examples of mid-century kitchens.

A 1957 Time Capsule Kitchen THE 1957 KITCHEN from the Koravos family home in Andover,...
Mid-Century Kitchen Design THE 20th CENTURY WAS A TIME OF RADICAL CHANGE in...
Modern Kitchen “Wife-Savers” ACCORDING TO AMERICA’S KITCHENS, many of the things we...

Fun facts from America’s Kitchens

pam kueber — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:00:52 +0000

I’m traveling, and have brought my newest book — “America’s Kitchens” — along as bedtime reading. It’s a keeper, really nicely done. Some tidbits:

Introduced at the turn of the 20th century, the Hoosier cabinet was a huge step forward for homemakers and the first move toward “fitted kitchens.” Not only did it bring commonly used tools into one cabinet, it included containers and a table surface of porcelain enamel steel — much easier to keep food fresh and clean. 2 million Hoosier cabinets were in action by 1920.
In the first half of the 20th century, efficiency experts promoted small, step-saving kitchens. But as domestic servants left for factory jobs and mom moved definitively into the kitchen nearly fulltime, the kitchen got bigger. This reflected her desire for a pleasant work space and the fact that everyone wanted to gather there.
By 1940 only a third of farm households were electrified.
As late as 1945, three out of five farm households did not have a sink with a drain, and any water carried in had to be carried out.
In 1942 sugar became the first rationed food item…followed by coffee, meat and canned foods (to save tin.) A year later, ration books were issued to every man, woman and child….Hence our Victory Gardens.
The percentage of American families who owned a mechanical refrigerator jumped from 44 to 80 percent between 1940 and 1950.

“America’s Kitchens” is available via Pamazon

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“America’s Kitchens” exhibit in Concord, New Hampshire — retro road trip

pam kueber — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:00:32 +0000

On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart,
the kitchen is the place you can find it;
it dries the wet socks, it cools the hot little brain.”
—E.B. White, 1956

Need a place to point the station wagon this summer vacation? You’ll be sure to torture the pre-teens at “America’s Kitchens,” a new traveling exhibition organized by Historic New England. It has just begun its national tour in Concord, New Hampshire, where it will run through January 17, 2010. Next stops will be Long Island and Cape Cod.

Here’s what the website says about the exhibit:

Kitchens tell stories—about families and women’s roles; preparing food without running water, electricity, or refrigeration; new technologies; changes in gadgets and appliances; and shifts in values and everyday life. The exhibition features vignettes of historic kitchens in colonial New England and 19th-century Illinois, as well as a traditional adobe kitchen in the Southwest, and a 1950s bright blue, “show kitchen.” Through interactive experiences, visitors can learn what it was like to churn butter, share a kitchen memory, or jot down a recipe from one of the many cookbooks available.

Each item in the exhibition tells a story and excerpts from letters and diaries reveal both nostalgic memories as well as despair at the endless drudgery of kitchen work. Although kitchen chores have changed from the multi-tasking of colonial and early 19th-century households—cooking, laundering, making soap and candles, spinning, and minding children—to common activities taking place in kitchen today—paying bills, doing homework, entertaining, and microwaving popcorn—the kitchen remains the “heart of the home.”

Amen. See more information about the exhibit here.

America’s Kitchens: Fascinating AND Entertaining Reviewers generally don’t gush, but I can’t help myself! The...
A 1957 Time Capsule Kitchen THE 1957 KITCHEN from the Koravos family home in Andover,...
Mid-Century Kitchen Design THE 20th CENTURY WAS A TIME OF RADICAL CHANGE in...

“America’s Kitchens” – I bought the book, too

pam kueber — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:59:42 +0000

“America’s Kitchens” by Nancy Carlisle, Melinda Talbot Nasardinov, and Jennifer Pustz is possibly the only comprehensive book on the history of the American kitchen. I am reading it right now. This is just the stuff I love: How Hoosier cabinets, frozen food, open plan architecture and other tweaky things changed the way we live in, and use, our kitchens. And I like to hear the story right from the beginning, too…because virtually no development can be understood in isolation. For example, when I was busy researching “Why steel kitchen cabinets?” it took me all the way back to…Florence Nightingale…Another story for another day. I supported Historic New England by paying them full price. You can get an even better deal at Amazon…via my Pamazon store, of course.

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