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? ******************************************************************************************************************************** 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 […]
