historic new england

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.  Heck yeah there is more…

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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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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.

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Office of War Information Poster No. 57, “We’ll have lots to eat this winter, won’t we mother?” Alfred Parker (1906–1985), graphic designer. (Washington, D.C.: United States Office of War Information, Division of Public Inquires, 1943). Promised gift to Historic New England from private collection. Used on this site with permission from Historic New England.

Reviewers generally don’t gush, but I can’t help myself! The America’s Kitchens publication and exhibition both nimbly cover a broad topic without bogging down, and they touch on important issues (think slave cooking, Irish servants, and women’s roles) along the way—without hitting you over the head with it. Both are filled with great quotes and visuals that readers of this blog will eat up (no pun intended, of course). In the exhibition, I especially enjoyed the opportunity to browse through vintage American cookbooks in a reading area set aside for that purpose. There are even recipe cards on hand in case you find something to try at home. Enjoy! — Erica Donnis

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

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