THE KEEPING OF BROWNSTONES – 1, 2, 3 (1909)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
Do you know the history of YOUR house?
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Every year new wonders are invented that will make housekeeping a pleasant occupation for the housewife.
So declared the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the 3 October 1909 edition of their paper in a “puff” piece on the latest in kitchen tools for the good housewife.
The article slyly implied that women’s housework was difficult and so why not make it easier on her by purchasing the latest in kitchen gadgets.
SELLING THE LATEST IN KITCHEN GADGETS
These type puff articles were mostly fillers in the newspaper, but they also spoke to the housewife who was more often reading newspapers and sought out improvements in the tools she used in keeping house. (On the same page were articles entitled, “Artist or Woman,” “Women of Iceland Lead Active Lives,” and “The Making of Perfume.” Newspapers must have known what women wanted to read about back then!)
This piece presented some of the newer tools available in the market – many of them simply improvements on older ones – that made life in the kitchen simpler.
“The housewife who is dissatisfied with her present equipment…will not find it much of a task to secure new things,” the reporter informed.
The correspondent then went on to lay out and describe the “newest production in metal and porcelain for use on the table and in the kitchen.
There was the “french fried potato cutter,” a cylindrical device with a grating on top which easily turned a potato into “fries.”
There was the tea strainer which provided a stand for the strainer when it was not in use, as well as a larger strainer with a screen of “fine mesh” attached, which strained any liquid poured therein. One was “used for soup and the other for tea or coffee.”
A preserving kettle that is “warranted to save the time and temper of the cook during the strenuous preserving season” had a “special feature being the cup-like rest at one side for the spoon.”
“Another invention in the interest of the cook” was “the cake tin, which admits, by the manipulation of a little spring, of the removal of the sides and bottom of the tin, leaving the cake intact.”
Another funnel, “with a strainer attachment” was listed as “a handy possession.”
A final item – candlesticks – were designed primarily “for the traveler and fit into a leather case which will easily slip into a grip.”
“This is the time of year when frequent visits to the house furnishing corners of the shop,” the reporter promised, “will reveal many interesting labor savers.”
And these were the type articles that allowed the Edwardian husband to purchase a rolling pin for his wife for Christmas with the surety that it would not only make her a better cook, but it would also make her a happy wife.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
