CULINARY CULTURE May 15-December 31, 1996 Overview Culinary Culture demonstrated how innovations in the kitchen, from appliances to tableware, were advertised and incorporated into the early twentieth-century home, and were even used to promote government policies. The foods we eat and the way they are prepared and presented at the table change over time, revealing a great deal about our culture. By the end of the nineteenth century, American and European societies had been radically transformed from being primarily rural and agricultural to urban and industrial. In cities and in towns, daily life was revolutionized by the wide availability of gas, water, and electric utilities. These shifting economic and demographic structures brought about changes in the way people lived and the way they acquired and prepared food. Industrial progress had removed the actual processing of food from the home, leaving only the jobs of cooking and cleaning. Even those humble tasks were to be transformed by new technologies that their developers pledged would make the home a mechanical and electrified paradise. "Domestic engineers" from the United States and Europe took the hugely influential ideas set forth in Frederick W. Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management (1911) and applied them to the home. The transference of industrial time and motion studies to the modern household appealed to the emerging class of white-collar workers, whose economic success, unlike the traditional upper classes, was not defined by a work force of domestic servants. They became the primary consumers of the new array of products that all promised to save time and energy. Early models of electrical cooking appliances by today's standards were simple, even primitive - the universal electric toaster, for example, could toast only one side at a time. They were able to provide, however, unprecedented convenience. Manufacturers of kitchen appliances and tableware eagerly adopted a range of strategies to cultivate consumer spending. Products like the Sunray pitcher (c. 1928) might have the angular, geometric forms evocative of the discordant rhythms of the Jazz Age. Or they could be miniature versions of large-scale technological marvels, such as the Eiffel Tower teapot and hot water kettle. The favored new materials - chromed-metal, aluminum, and plastic - came to represent cleanliness and efficiency. Industrial designers were hired to make products more commercially appealing. Streamlined styling - aerodynamic forms applied to products of all types - became a call to arms, so much so that in a telegraph to President Roosevelt in 1934, designer Egmont Arens promoted it as a recovery slogan. "Streamlining," he maintained, "has captured American imagination to mean modern, efficient, well-organized, sweet, clean, and beautiful." Advertising and packaging also took a new direction - products were sold according to their "image." Publicity campaigns in mass-market magazines touted innovations in appliances and food preparation as modern, hygienic, and timesaving; manufacturers cited "objective" scientific research to give weight to their sometimes incredible (and unprovable) claims. Back to Past Exhibitions Main