From Fireplace to Cookstove

"In one of the first works to treat this significant subject, Priscilla J. Brewer examines the development and history of the first American appliance - the cast-iron stove - which created a quiet but culturally contested transformation of domestic life and many important debates about the role of women, industrialization, the definition of social class, and the development of a consumer economy.". "Brewer covers impressive new ground, exploring 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 the world in nineteenth-century America. She also considers the changing responses to technological development, the emergence of a consumer ethic, and the attempt to define and preserve a distinct Anglo-American middle-class culture.". "Extensively documented - based on letters, diaries, probate inventories, census records, sales figures, advertisements, fiction, and advice literature - the book will be valuable to scholars of American history and women's studies."--BOOK JACKET.