|
American women of all classes historically have shared one particular
common denominator: cooking. Prior to the second quarter of
the nineteenth century when mass-produced cast iron and steel
stoves were more available nationwide, cooking was a labor-intensive
chore done on an open fire in a fireplace. Wood or coal had
to be hauled into the house, and ashes removed daily. Worse
was the limited variety of food that could be cooked by this
method. Kettles of stews or soups were easy enough, but the
art of banking fires over Dutch ovens or piles of bricks or
stones for baking took considerable experience. Likewise, choosing
the types of wood that burned hotter or longer and then arranging
the fuels for consistent fires required great skill. Even when
successful, though, early American cooking was regarded with
disdain both at home and abroad. English novelist Frederick
Marryat wrote in the early nineteenth century that there were
"plenty of good things for the table in America; but 'God
sends meat, and the devil sends cooks.'"
Chapter 3 of Advertising
to the American Woman 1900-1999 by Daniel Delis Hill
has been generously provided to aef.com in Adobe Acrobat®
format by the Ohio
State University Press.
Click here
for Chapter Three (1.29 MB)*
For more information, please visit the Ohio
State University Press Web site.
*This requires the appropriate Adobe Acrobat® plug-ins
for your browser. If you prefer to download them, right-mouse
click (Control + Click on the Mac) on the link and click on
"save target as..." or "save link as..."
depending on your browser.
Click
here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader® (it's free).
Daniel Delis Hill, Ohio State Press
Copyright © 2002 Ohio State University. All rights reserved.
|
Print Version