For centuries, the kitchen has served as a space within the home to prepare meals, but today’s cooking spaces look and function very differently compared to ones in the past. Kitchen appliances, in particular, have evolved to make cooking faster, easier, and more convenient.
To visually map the technological changes throughout the years, home improvement website HomeAdvisor recently released infographics that detail the evolution of several everyday kitchen appliances, such as the refrigerator, dishwasher, and stove. See below for brief histories, where innovative leaps were made, and what these appliances may look like in the future.
Back in the 1900s, the refrigerator was merely an ice box, or a non-mechanical unit stuffed with ice to keep food cool. Sometimes, it was lined with zinc or tin, and took on a more cabinet-like form.
The appliance’s great advancements developed throughout the 20th century. General Electric and others began selling the first home refrigerators in 1911. However, the product used various toxic gases as refrigerants and could potentially lead to dangerous fridge leaks.
According to HomeAdvisor’s research, manufacturers discovered the non-toxic gas Freon and refrigerators went into mass production by the end of World War II. Then, in the early 1990s, the manufacturers switched to tetrafluoroethane, a more environmentally-friendly coolant.
Today, the options for finishes, styles, and technology are endless. From French-door models and new matte black finishes to LCD screens and WiFi connectivity, current fridges can do much more than just store food and who knows what the future will bring, maybe a bio robot?
Introduced in the 1890s, the earliest dishwashers consisted of wooden wheels placed flat inside a copper boiler. Electric motors were added in the 1920s, when permanent plumbing began to proliferate.
Twenty years later in 1940, William Howard Livens invented the model that most would easily recognize today, with wire racks, a rotating sprayer, and a loading front door. The appliance profoundly changed domestic life and has continued to evolve to include water-saving features, a range of cycles, and “more technology inside them than a spaceship, probably.”
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, stoves were large, cast-iron units like the gas-fueled Othello stove introduced in 1900. It wasn’t until the next decade when enamels were incorporated for easier cleaning.
The big “game changer” came in the late 1920s when electric cookers began to compete with gas for space in consumers’ kitchens. In the following years, manufacturers focused on hiding gas manifolds and other hardware. Plus, new features, such as timers and internal lights, were added.
Both gas and electric still compete today, but stoves and ovens have become “smart.” From preheating an oven from an app on the way home to reading food’s internal temperatures, several units have expanded to make cooking a breeze.
Check out the history and infographics of more kitchen appliances, like the coffee maker, toaster, blender, and juicer, at HomeAdvisor.
