Wendi Dunlap was researching historic kitchens to redesign her kitchen more authentically in her Arts & Crafts bungalow home. She shared her research of kitchen images from c. 1905 to 1925 so we can all benefit. You’ll love it. She also linked to another great historic kitchen image site, shorpy, with their funny post:
“Speaking as someone who needs to go lie down after microwaving a bag of broccoli, just looking at all this [1921] food preparation makes me dizzy with fatigue.“
Dr Mile’s Candy Cook Book was published circa 1911, no later than 1914. It has recipes for Salted Almonds, Candy Eggs for Easter, Cocoanut Taffy, Popcorn Balls, Cough Candy, Coffee Fudge, Popcorn Fudge, Maple Wax (made with snow or ice), Rose Drops and Jujube Paste (both recipes call for cochineal to color), and more. Much of the text is a call to try Dr Mile’s medicines.
Dr Franklin Miles was born in 1845 and graduated from Rush Medical College in 1874, and Chicago Medical College in 1875. He practiced medicine for ten years and in c. 1885 established the “Miles Medical Company” in Elkhart, Indiana to make and distribute his patent medicines.
Pyrex was invented in 1913, and Corning Glass started selling it in 1915. It was promoted by Sarah Tyson Rover, editor of Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping. Rover used demonstrations across the nation to help people get accustomed to cooking with PYREX, a clear borosilicate glass. Now PYREX is made with tempered soda-lime glass. Read The History of Pyrex Glass
When you see Pyrex from 1883, there may be a discrepancy! eBay Auctions
By 1916 Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book was the standard culinary textbook in Oklahoma public schools. Before 1916, the textbook Austin’s Domestic Science was known to be used. Here is a pdf copy of a later edition of the Oklahoma school textbook, Austin’s Domestic Science. Note: The pdf eBook may take a minute to appear.
In another old cook book, Modern Women of America Cook Book, two modern women from 1913 Oklahoma share their “Smothered Chicken” recipes.
Smothered Chicken.
One young chicken, one-half cupful butter, little lard, yolks two eggs, one cup cream, three potatoes, one onion, stalk celery. Dress and cut up a nice young chicken. Put the butter and lard in a deep frying pan and when very hot put in the chicken, dredged in flour. Slice the potatoes and onions one-quarter of an inch thick and lay on top of the chicken and add the celery chopped fine, and the seasoning. Fry until brown, then without turning pour on enough hot water to cover. Cover closely and cook until tender. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add the cream. Be sure the chicken is covered with water, then add the thickening and let boil up once. A year-old chicken can be used.—Mrs. Walter Thrasher, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1913.
Smothered Chicken.
One large chicken, flour, seasoning, butter. Dress and cut up the chicken as for frying. Dredge with flour and place in a dripping pan. Season, add a little butier and cover with boiling water. Put in the oven and bake until tender.—Mrs. Etta Owen, Poarch, Oklahoma, 1913
Remember to catch the Smithsonian’s exhibit at six locations in Oklahoma in 2011-2012, “Key Ingredients: America By Food.”
Thank you to Oklahoma Pastry Clothe Company for duplicating historic recipes from the original Austin’s Domestic Science book.
Excerpts from The Complete Home, 1906
The Kitchen
If any one room in the home was conceived solely for the relief of man’s estate, that room is the kitchen, and it has supplied the energy which has sent forth many a one to fight a winning battle with the world, the flesh, and the devil; …it is, alas, too true that it is the rock upon which many a domestic ship has gone to pieces…
The Dining Room and the Kitchen
Many families do no home baking, and where fruit and vegetables are preserved the basement is utilized. Compactness in the kitchen saves hundreds of steps in the course of a day, and though it is difficult for us to forget the spacious room thought necessary by our parents, we may well learn, for our own comfort, to profit by the modern reasoning that opposes waste space.
The Plan
Blessed indeed is the kitchen with opposite windows, which insure a perfect circulation of air.
Location and Finish
A combination of white woodwork with blue walls and ceiling is charming, particularly where the blue-enameled porcelain-lined cooking utensils are used.
The Floor
…the new “colonial” cotton-rag rugs, woven in harmony with the general color scheme, protect the floor and help to relieve the strain of much standing, and can he washed and dried as satisfactorily as any piece of cotton cloth…
The Windows
A dainty valance, or sash curtains of muslin, dimity, or other summer wash goods, give an attractive and homey touch to the room.
The Sink
The sink, unless it is porcelain-lined, should be kept well painted and enameled, white being preferable to any color.
The Pantry
There are usually four shelves, the top one being reserved for articles of infrequent use. On the others are arranged the kitchen dishes, pans, and all utensils which do not hang, together with jars and cans containing food.
The Refrigerator and Its Care
If one cares to invest in the higher-priced refrigerators, of course those lined with tile, porcelain, or enamel are very desirable, as they are easily kept clean and do not absorb odors.
The Stove
A rack behind the stove, on which to hang the spoons and forks used in cooking, is a great convenience and a saving to the table top.
The Table and Its Care
The table should stand on casters and be placed in a good light as far from the stove as may be. The latest product of the manufacturer’s genius in this line contains two drawers—one spaced off into compartments for the different knives, forks, and spoons for kitchen use—a molding board, and three zinc-lined bins, one large one for wheat flour, and two smaller one for graham flour, corn meal, etc.
Chairs
…A chair of this kind has a cane seat and high back and can be purchased for $1.25, the other chair to be of the regulation kitchen style at 55 cents….
The Kitchen Cabinets
…the kitchen cabinet, which not only relieves the congestion in the pantry, but adds in no small measure to the attractiveness of the kitchen. These cabinets come in the natural woods, and should, as nearly as possible, match the woodwork of the kitchen….
Kitchen Utensils
Kitchen crockery is being rapidly supplanted by the porcelain enamel dishes, which, though rather more expensive in the beginning, are unbreakable, and so cheaper in the long run. They are even invading the domain of the faithful yellow mixing bowl and becoming decidedly popular therein, being light in weight and more easily handled.
In the Foothills of North Carolina in the city of Pinnacle lives the Horne Creek Living Historical Farm, depicting farm life circa 1900-1910. You will see the farmhouse, well house, smokehouse, tobacco curing barn, corncrib, fruit house and a reconstructed fruit and vegetable drying house.
And while you’re in North Carolina, the Historic Oak View County Park has an 1825 summer kitchen building. Like
Great historic cooking posts about the 1900 farm at the Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa (just North of Des Moines)! At least four time periods are represented at the working kitchens. Below are photos of the 1870s kitchen and the 1850s cabin.
Check out the first photo with at least 3 different kinds of turn-of-the-century stoves… The Paynesville Area Historical Museum is in Paynesville, Minnesota.
 Photo by Jonathunder |
The complete history of the Green Giant Co. is displayed at the Le Sueur Museum in Le Sueur, Minnesota. The company was founded in 1903 as the Minnesota Valley Canning Company. How 1953 Jolly!
I‘m giving credit to Juliet Corson, founder of the New York Cooking School in 1876, as being the inspiration that began the craze for cooking schools and cooking classes in the United States. Her book, Cooking School Text Book and Housekeepers’ Guide, published in 1879 by Orange Judd Company, laid out the directions for others to open schools, with explanations on furnishings, teacher requirements, and course content.
Click here for a list of Cooking Schools, or Domestic Science departments, in the United States in 1905. The article begins on page 174. Included are notes such as the Boston Cooking School, with the writer, Fannie Farmer as principal, cost $125 per 6 months, the same as Simmons College in Boston. Another Massachusetts school, The State Normal School in Framingham, had one of the largest Domestic Science departments in the country. The Philadelphia Cooking School, is listed with Mrs. Rorer as principal, another famous cook book writer. Like
You will find an on-the-farm pork butchering display to the farm family kitchen and more at the Family Farm in Frederick, Maryland! The farm museum recreates the life of a family farm during the late-19th century and early-20th century. Like
You will find 3 kitchen displays and a moonshine still at The McCreary Museum in Kentucky representing different eras. One kitchen represents 1790, another circa 1900, and lastly, a 1920s Miner’s kitchen.
Another moonshine still is displayed in Kentucky at Barthell Coal Mining Camp.
Note the kitchen wallpaper at Granny’s house. Like
In the 1780s Oliver Evans of Delaware invented a grist mill design that was more efficient. Before this, grist mills hadn’t changed their design since the Middle Ages. He was the 3rd person to be granted a patent by the newly opened American Patent Office. Out of necessity in the 1790s many grist mill owners switched to Evan’s grist mill design to stay competitive in the marketplace.
His design included a hopper to process and dry grain, automated conveyances, and other updates.
By the 1830s mills were powered by steam engines, and no longer had to be located on a river to generate power.
In 1850 there were over 100,000 gristmills. Because people had to visit the mill weekly to get their flours, the local mill became a social event. Now there are fewer than 1,000 mills in the United States, but some are open to the public. Like
If you’d like to visit one, here is a partial list:
More Mills:
See the wikipedia site for List of Water Mills, tidemills, and Gristmill
See Threshing and Milling post
Reference:
* Gristmills, Grinding grain, preserving history by Marti Attoun. American Profile. Harold Rapp, president of the Society for the Preservation of Old Mills.
* Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, by Andrew F. Smith, 2009
* The Young Mill-Wright and Miller’s Guide, by Oliver Evans, 1795
Le Mars, Iowa is officially the “The Ice Cream Capital of the World.”
Conveniently, Iowa’s Hart Dummermuth House Museum staff posted a picture of their 1890s-1900s kitchen on their website : ) Berkeley Historical Museum in Bayville, New Jersey doesn’t have a picture, but there is a 1900 kitchen there, if you’re in the neighborhood.
Want to see one early-1900s bottle of kethup? Why not! You can view the kethup bottle with correspondence between the company and a satisfied customer at the Seaford Museum in Seaford, Delaware.
Read the history of tomato ketchup.
Vintage Soda Fountains
- Indiana, Columbus: The Bushton Museum — an 1850s soda fountain and others which make up the largest collection of pre-1900 marble soda fountains on public display
- Kansas: The Bushton Museum
- Kansas, Belleville: Purple Splash Inc. — working
- Minnesota, St. Peter: William A. Soderlund, Sr. Pharmacy Museum — a Soda Fountain Museum, Patent Medicine Museum, and more
- Nebraska, Omaha: The Durham Museum — 1931 working soda fountain
- Washington, Yakima: The Soda Fountain – a working soda fountain museum
- Washington, Tennessee, Cross Plains: Thomas Drugs – a working soda fountain and drug store
- Oklahoma, Maud: Maud Historical Museum
- Tennessee, Clarksrange: Cumberland Mountain General Store 1950s working Soda Fountain (first mute sound)
…and there’s a collection of more than 500 old soda pop bottles at Norton’s Indian Territory Museum in Marietta, Oklahoma.
Some of the processed items it would be great to duplicate from scratch are:
The first two require a common household mill. But corn flakes? How do the cereal companies make flaked cereal? Flaked cereal has been around since milling machines have been around, and earlier when done by hand. But they make small flattened grains–oatmeal, for example. Here is a site that inspired me to try to obtain an Italian oat rolling mill or flaking machine by the name of Marcato. And the following photos are of an antique Roller Mill in the process of making flaked wheat from hulled wheat, similar to the household Marcato.
But what we’re looking to make at home are large crispy flakes, such as corn flakes. In 1894 Kellogg invented a recipe of boiled grain in paste form, which was then dried and roasted. In 1906 malt was added as a sweetener which began their commercial success with corn flakes.
Now all major cereal companies make an adaptation of the corn flake and we found one of the machine suppliers for making them:
Baker Perkins is one of the companies that manufacturers the machines that make corn flakes and extruded cereals.
A bakeryandsnacks.com article mentioned that the flaking process consists of converting “grains or extruded pellets” into flakes ready for toasting. And Baker Perkins mentions “wheat and bran flakes [use] the traditional steam cooking process…” and “Other units can be added later to extend the product range to include corn, multigrain and frosted flakes…and…extruded cereals such as corn balls, multigrain rings, alphabet shapes, and cocoa balls can be extended, through additional units ”
Sounds like fun! Let’s write to them and ask them to make a small version for the home kitchen! Or tell your inventor friends. : )
On September 6 [2009] I emailed Baker Perkins using the form on their website and asked them if they knew where I could get their cereal-flaking and extruding machine for home use. A long shot, but who knows?
As of December 7, 2009 I haven’t received a reply, so at this point I’m not expecting a reply.
I bumped into a few more hints about the making of corn flakes.
Corn flakes are manufactured by passing corn, after the removal of the hull and the germ, between hot rolls. The corn before going to the rolls is cooked so that the starch is gelatinized. The pressure of the rolls is sufficient to flatten out the corn into flakes and the heat of the rolls dries them. The flakes turned out for use in doughs for the baker are so treated that none of the starch is converted into yellow dextrine, nor is any color produced in any other way, the product being pure white. A similarly prepared flake, which has practically been toasted, is sold widely for use as a breakfast food, but on account of its color and characteristics cannot be used for bread-making. — Baking Materials Part Three, 1923, Siebel Institute of Technology.
Check when the next amazing Annual Midwest Old Threshers Reunion will take place.
Strawbery Banke in NH is literally digging up accurate kitchen details of an early 1900s kosher kitchen…read about it on their website…but, really, more pictures! : )
The New York Times describes the reenactment… Worthy of note about the consumption of ice in an icebox:
“I get 50 pounds of ice [for the icebox] for 25 cents every other day…”
–Early 1900s grain mills at the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt Pleasant, Iowa, 2009, above–
Historic crushing and grinding of grains may get you wondering if you should duplicate this process to serve baked goods and cereals with more nutrients. Search online for grain mills. Modern equivalents to these grain mills range from small hand-crank home-kitchen mills to commercial grade mills. Here is a comprehensive site: Pleasant Hill Grain.
One of the grain mills was described as being able to also grind coffee beans. Do you have a coffee mill grinder at home? I’m not sure if this use will harm the coffee grinder in the long run, but when I realized I have a mill already, I ran to the bucket of fresh wheat that was taken off the plant stock not 5 hours before, and ran them through the little electric coffee mill that I bought at Borders store. What do you know — it produced a flour!
This wheat, above, is part of the batch that was threshed and ended up in my coffee grinder hours later. The next video is the people threshing the wheat that ended up in my coffee grinder…
Video: Noisy steam-powered threshing machine
Visit St Clair County Farm Museum in Michigan during their “Old Fashion Harvest Days” for a demonstration of a steam-powered threshing machine.
Wheat can also be harvested by hand and threshed by hand.
Sonya Welter instructs us on how to thresh wheat by hand: “Gather the stalks into bundles and thresh by beating, shaking or stepping on it. Winnow to separate the wheat from the chaff, and store the whole wheat berries in a cool, dark place. Process into flour or bulgur as needed.” Here is a link to a 1947 method of threshing wheat from Gambatesa, Italy.
A list of old mills is available
at the Historic Mills page.
Above are some antique corn shellers that were at the Old Threshers Reunion in Mt Pleasant, Iowa, 2009. Manual corn shellers were improved enough to work smoothly by the 1870s. See the a picture of a corn sheller from 1870.
The early shellers required manual feeding of the cobs of corn; later, and now, they automatically feed into the corn sheller by a conveyor.
Check out our investigation on how to make corn flakes and other cereal.
