From Fireplace to Cookstove
Subtitle: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: October 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 338
ISBN-13: 9780815606505
Subjects: American history: c 1800 to c 1900; Family, Home and Practical Interests; Impact of science & technology on society; Social history; Women's studies; c 1800 to c 1900; Sociology; Family; Household Equipment; Social Science; USA; Sociology - Marriage & Family; Customs & Traditions; History; Social aspects; Stoves; United States
Description: "In one of the first works to treat this significant subject, Priscilla J. Brewer examines the development and history of the first American appliance - the cast-iron stove - which created a quiet but culturally contested transformation of domestic life and many important debates about the role of women, industrialization, the definition of social class, and the development of a consumer economy.".

"Brewer covers impressive new ground, exploring the shift from fireplaces to stoves for cooking and heating in American homes, and sheds new light on the supposedly "separate spheres" of home and the world in nineteenth-century America. She also considers the changing responses to technological development, the emergence of a consumer ethic, and the attempt to define and preserve a distinct Anglo-American middle-class culture.".

"Extensively documented - based on letters, diaries, probate inventories, census records, sales figures, advertisements, fiction, and advice literature - the book will be valuable to scholars of American history and women's studies."--BOOK JACKET.