Abstract
British domestic kitchens are a product of long evolution but went through a period of great innovation one hundred years ago. Some sections of British society started to take an interest in a space that had been largely disregarded. The “servant problem” and suburban building were factors in this changed perspective. By reference to period newspaper archives, the nature of those changes can be demonstrated in some detail. Although there was a narrative of efficiency, and design ideas from Europe and the United States, progress for British kitchens was piecemeal and conflicted by fuel-choice issues as well as the question of how to equip the space for personal use. Ideas that survived this period of experimentation were to form the basis of kitchen development in subsequent decades.
Highlights
In 1920, a “Woman and Home” newspaper columnist refected on the Daily Mail’s “Ideal Labour-Saving House” competition and praised the imagination of contestants.The kitchen, with its innumerable labour-saving devices, sounds rather like a fairy tale; there is everything at hand for cooking, while the ftments are moveable for cleaning
There can be no doubt that the 1920s were a decade of transformative designs but what of the process of transformation? Newspaper narratives of the day characterised the kitchen as a focus for progressive ideas
For many members of better-off households who might previously have had little reason to concern themselves with kitchen equipment, layout and functionality, greater engagement was needed, if not unequivocally welcomed
Summary
To cite this article: Phil Lyon (2020) Uncertain Progress: British Kitchens in the 1920S, Home Cultures, 17:3, 205-226, DOI: 10.1080/17406315.2021.1948164 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17406315.2021.1948164 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfhc20
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