Stoves and Ovens: Wood and Coal

American cast-iron cookstoves had their earliest origins in the kitchens of the wealthy in Europe after the Middle Ages. These early ranges were large boxes that held a fire. Flat-bottomed pots placed on the range absorbed sufficient heat for cooking. In some kitchens a sheet-iron oven with hinged doors was set flush in the wall above its own “fireplace” alongside the main hearth. The heat from the fire below circulated around the oven before entering the flue leading to the main chimney. These adjuncts to hearth cooking heated more quickly than large brick ovens but were apparently limited to more affluent homes. It was from such precedents that the American cookstove evolved. The rapid rise in popularity and use of cookstoves coincided with the beginnings of the nineteenth-century American Industrial Revolution. Embraced by middle- and upper-class householders in growing cities, cookstoves played a role in changing American home life and American cuisine.