Kitchen In The 1950's

The evolution of kitchen appliances and machines --such as stoves, refrigerators, and dishwashers-- have increasingly pushed the importance of the kitchen in the American home. A big boom in the kitchen industry post World War II brought upon the American people many new and exotic ideas that helped with the evolution of the kitchen and a woman’s role in it. The increasing development of the kitchens proved easier for women to join their husbands and children in leisure activities with little worry of chaos from the continuous cooking food. Additionally, the ideas that came and were introduced within the 1950s generation reached out a little too far from reality and induced a futuristic and advanced feel with automated machines. In comparison to the modern kitchen of today, the “modern kitchen” of the 1950s was greatly gas-based and automatic, products placed as a “white” necessity, and adopted a futuristic feel.

Instead of spending the day away washing dishes, clothes, and making food, women could now easily go through their kitchen chores by loading the dishwasher, laundry washer, and oven. These machines gave women the opportunity to multitask. Similar to the modern day, a woman could work on some other chore while the dishes were cleaned, clothes were washed, and the food was made with a touch of a button. However, 1950s kitchens were mostly gas-based, stoves and ovens, washers and dryers, and water heaters were connected to gas tanks that power the machines. Houses were built to have gas lines that provided these machines the power to work. In modern day America, most machines have been converted to the electrical side, needing only an outlet to achieve enough power to