Cooking Equipment, Social Aspects of: History and Fashion

Fashion and its timing are closely tied to economics. Throughout history most fashion has started at the socio-economic top, often inspired by expense and scarcity, but gradually becoming available to lower levels when prices moderated. Less often it has been inspired by the sentimentalization of originally modest artifacts, exemplified by 1870s Colonial Revival decor. By the 1880s the American industrialization was providing considerably more objects than had been possible 100 years earlier. Numerous newly patented and ingenious kitchen tools extended the movement toward specialization and labor-saving. Women’s nineteenth-century homemaker image was enhanced by up-to-date cookery that required specialized equipment, table furnishings, and cookbooks.