Famous Kitchen Firsts

Year Invented 1908 electric coffee percolator 1909 electric toaster 1910 electric mixer 1911 electric skillet 1913 electric refrigerator 1915 Pyrex 1926 electric steam iron 1927 stainless steel cookware 1935 food waste disposer (the Disposall) 1936 automatic dishwasher 1937 automatic clothes washer 1945 Tupperware 1954 microwave oven 1956 toaster oven 1958 electric can opener Photo: eBay

Other Kitchenware

Other names on collectible kitchenware made of glass, ceramic, and plastic include: Anchor Hocking’s Fire-King glassware, Fry Glass Company’s Oven Glass, Hall China Company’s refrigerator and oven wares (made for Westinghouse, Sears, Montgomery Ward, Hotpoint, and General Electric), Homer Laughlin’s Fiesta Kitchen Craft line of bake-and-serve pieces, McKee Glass Company’s kitchenware, Watt Pottery’s various patterns […]

Wagner

Another well-known manufacturer of cast-iron and early cast-aluminum cookware was the Wagner Manufacturing Company, founded in Sidney, Ohio, in 1881. Wagner pre-seasoned iron cookware with pure beeswax, which helped prevent rust and formed a less sticky surface. In 1934 Wagner introduced a brightly finished aluminum alloy it dubbed Magnalite. Both the Wagner and Magnalite brand […]

Griswold

The most famous name in cast-iron cookware is Griswold Manufacturing Company, founded in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1865. By the end of the 1880s, Griswold was known as a manufacturer of high-quality cast-iron griddles, waffle irons, Dutch ovens, and roasters. By the 1920s, it was making cast-iron and aluminum kettles, cake and muffin pans, pots and […]

Italian Design for the Home – Alessi

The stainless steel kettle with a blue plastic handle and a red bird whistling on the spout and the corkscrew that looks like a smiling woman with levers for arms were designed for and made by Alessi. The Italian company was founded in 1921 to make metal products for eating and drinking. At first, the […]

Hoosier Cabinets

Between the time of freestanding or wall-hung cabinets and the arrival of built-ins came the Hoosier cabinet, a creative piece invented by an Indiana man named J. S. McQuinn. The Hoosier cabinet is a large, freestanding unit with bins for dry ingredients like flour and sugar, a tin (later porcelain) work surface, and drawers and […]

Kitchen Utensils

Thousands of small kitchen utensils were manufactured during the 1900s. Some collectors specialize in a special kitchen tool—an eggbeater, spatula, corkscrew, or bottle opener. Others might want anything with a Bakelite or green wooden handle. Bakelite, a phenol-formaldehyde resin and an early synthetic plastic, was invented in 1907 by chemist Leo Baekeland. He patented the […]

Flameware

In the 1930s, Corning’s chemists invented another type of clear glassware that the company used to make stovetop cookware marketed as Pyrex Flameware. Products, which were tinted slightly blue, included saucepans and skillets with detachable handles, double boilers, a teakettle and a teapot, coffee percolators, bottles, bowls, refrigerator storage containers, and additional kitchenware. In 1947 […]

Glass Kitchenware—Pyrex

Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York, introduced Pyrex brand glass baking dishes in 1915. The first Pyrex products included covered casseroles, pie pans, shirred egg dishes, custard cups, an individual baker, an au gratin dish, and a loaf pan. Within two years, Corning added several more shapes and sizes of Pyrex transparent ovenware, and […]

Appliances

Electric or gas-powered appliances also changed the look of the twentieth-century kitchen, and today the old appliances are wanted by those restoring early twentieth-century houses. Electric refrigerators were made by the 1920s by Kelvinator, General Electric, and General Motors (Frigidaire). They were heavy, with wooden cases and nickel hinges, and were too expensive for the […]