If we consider the machines used in the kitchen for cleaning purposes, a considerable list can be made, but the gas and oil stove and fireless cooker should not be forgotten, since they accomplish cleaning in a negative way, for they eliminate the dirt and ashes of the old-fashioned coal-range. Then, too, the automatic gas water-heater, and also the oil water-heater, give the best material for cleaning that is known to mankind—hot water. But as electricity becomes more available we have the electric stove and the electric water-heater, which is superior to the gas and oil heater, as far as labor-saving is considered. Then there is the electric dish-washer, which performs all the washing, rinsing, and drying operations. The dishes and other tableware are securely held in removable racks while being washed, thus preventing breakage. When not in operation this dish-washer can be used as a white-enamel-topped kitchen-table. One must not forget the electric silver-polisher and knife-grinder and other smaller instruments for cleaning that can be operated by a small motor.
Machines for the Preparation of Foods
Machines of this kind include a great variety of small inventions intended to safely store the food, prepare it for cooking, and cook it. There is the small electric refrigerator, the thermonor which keeps foods chilled by evaporation of water, the ordinary ice-box, with its special door to put ice in from the outside, the special receiving-box in the wall into which the milkman can place his milk-bottles in the morning or the butcher his meat. Then for the small house is the very important kitchen-cabinet, with its special place for the keeping of flour, sugar, dish-pans, and a hundred other things that are needed to be handy at the time of preparing the food. Electrically operated coffee-grinders, meat-choppers, bread-mixers, egg-beaters, toasters, coffee-percolators, chafing-dishes, samovars, frying-pans, teakettles, radiant grilles, and other similar devices are but a few suggestions of the multitude of inventions actually on the market and found practical as labor-saving machines. Why should one sweat at the brow on a hot summer day freezing the ice-cream when an electrically driven motor can do the same work at the cost of a few cents? Why should one swelter in the hot kitchen during the jam and jelly making season when an electric fan can give the necessary cooling breeze, and the electric stove apply the heat more to what it is cooking than to the surrounding atmosphere? Of course the answer is that the cost of such equipment is too high, but we are gradually learning how to make these articles cheaper, and also learning how much energy they save us. Old traditions are breaking down in the kitchen, and the new machines are accepted more readily than they used to be. No longer does the younger generation think that what was good enough for father or mother is good enough for it. Grandmother used to wear her fingers down peeling potatoes and carrots, and stain them black, but daughter prefers to use a simple scraping device of hard stones set in a waterproof substance, which acts like rough sandpaper upon the skins of the vegetables, and then grandmother used to chop meat in a bowl, but now it is put in at one end of an electric grinder and comes out hash at the other. The older generation of cooks were not attracted by labor-saving devices, but the point of view to-day is different. That is the reason that the small house is attracting more buyers to-day than formerly, for its small up-keep and its small and cheerful kitchen are means of escape from too heavy household duties.
Machines for Moving Objects about the House
A TABLE-SERVICE WAGON
The electric dumb-waiter belongs to this class, but it is not installed in small houses very often. However, every one can afford the clothes-chute, which guides the dirty clothes down to the laundry. The table-service wagon is a very convenient help in serving a meal and removing the dishes when there is no maid to wait upon the diners. Then there is the china-closet which opens through to the kitchen from the dining-room. The dishes are washed in the kitchen and placed in the closet, and at the next meal they are taken out from the dining-room side without waste of steps. The old ash-can need not be lugged out of the cellar if a small telescope hoist is installed, and the coal can be put into the cellar through a metal coal-chute, instead of through the window. Wet clothes from the laundry can be hung out of the window on a revolving drier without going out into the yard, or placed in an electric drier in the laundry on rainy days. The transportation of small objects about the house can be very much reduced if machinery for this purpose is installed in the beginning. Most people think it is worth the price, and as soon as they see a way to paying for it they are certain purchasers.
Machines That Automatically Keep Watch
There is no need of getting up at five o’clock in the morning to turn the draft on in the furnace so that the house will be warm by breakfast. An electric thermostatic control can be made to do this, and in fact it can be regulated to keep the house in good temperature all the day. It is not necessary to light a fire to have hot water if an automatic gas-heater is next to the boiler, which lights the gas with a pilot-light when the faucet is turned on or when the temperature gets below a predetermined number of degrees. One does not need to worry about burning the roast in the oven if an automatic clock-timer is on it, which turns off the gas after the meat has cooked the correct number of hours. Food in a fireless cooker never worries the housekeeper, for it will not burn, and she knows it will be ready to serve when taken out. She does not have to stay home to let the delivery boy in with the vegetables, for he can put them into a small metal box built into the wall, which has a door that permits him to put his goods in, but does not permit any one getting an arm into the house, and the ice-man can deliver ice without calling her to the door. And so it goes; each new invention along this line removes the need of thinking of the small things about the house and of being continually on hand and a slave to them.