Cooking Equipment, Social Aspects of: Geography, Ethnicity, and Folk Art

Rural and urban wealth took different forms and today require different standards for interpretations. Before the nineteenth-century growth of cities, the vast majority of colonial Americans were farming, an economic venture in which there may have been wealth but incommensurate cash flow. Pre-industrial farm wealth, traditionally locked up in land, buildings, stock, and equipment, was not always available to expand on basic kitchen or dining room furnishings. The success of farming in various regions of the nation depended on local conditions, among them soils, weather patterns, and water access. For example, bottom land (in river valleys) was richer than that of the hills and mountains. Natural transportation routes (such as rivers) enabled the ready sale or barter of surplus and the opportunity to acquire more objects.