From Fireplace to Cookstove: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780815606505)

Priscilla J. Brewer examines the development and history of the first American appliance--the cast iron stove--that created a quiet, but culturally contested transformation of domestic life and sparked many important debates about the role of women, industrialization, the definition of social class, and the development of a consumer economy.

Brewer explores 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 world of nineteenth- century America. She also considers the changing responses to technological development, the emergence of a consumption ethic, and the attempt to define and preserve distinct Anglo-American middle class culture.

There are few works that treat this significant subject, and Brewer covers impressive new ground. Extensively documented--based on letters, diaries, probate inventories, census records, sales figures, advertisements, fiction, and advice literature-this book will be valuable to scholars of American history and women's studies.

Author: Priscilla Brewer
ISBN-10: 0815606508
ISBN-13: 9780815606505
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Language: English
Published: 09/01/2000
Pages: 358
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.65lbs
Size: 9.59h x 6.50w x 1.14d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2001 pg. 1291