Introduced in 1930 by Lionel Corp.—better known for its electric model trains—the fully functional toy stove shown at top had two electric burners and an oven that heated to 260 °C. It came with a set of cookware, including a frying pan, a pot with lid, a muffin tin, a tea kettle, and a wooden potato masher. I would have also expected a spoon, whisk, or spatula, but maybe most girls already had those. Just plug in the toy, and housewives-in-training could mimic their mothers frying eggs, baking muffins, or boiling water for tea.
A brief history of toy stoves
Even before electrification, cast-iron toy stoves had become popular in the mid-19th century. At first fueled by coal or alcohol and later by oil or gas, these toy stoves were scaled-down working equivalents of the real thing. Girls could use their stoves along with a toy waffle iron or small skillet to whip up breakfast. If that wasn’t enough fun, they could heat up a miniature flatiron and iron their dolls’ clothes. Designed to help girls understand their domestic duties, these toys were the gendered equivalent of their brothers’ toy steam engines. If you’re thinking fossil-fuel-powered “educational toys” are a recipe for disaster, you are correct. Many children suffered serious burns and sometimes death by literally playing with fire. Then again, people in the 1950s thought playing with uranium was safe.
When electric toy stoves came on the scene in the 1910s, things didn’t get much safer, as the new entrants also lacked basic safety features. The burners on the 1930 Lionel range, for example, could only be turned off or on, but at least kids weren’t cooking over an open flame. At 86 centimeters tall, the Lionel range was also significantly larger than its more diminutive predecessors. Just the right height for young children to cook standing up.
Western Electric’s Junior Electric Range was demonstrated at an expo in 1915 in New York City. The Strong
Well before the Lionel stove, the Western Electric Co. had a cohort of girls demonstrating its Junior Electric Range at the Electrical Exposition held in New York City in 1915. The Junior Electric held its own in a display of regular sewing-machine motors, vacuum cleaners, and electric washing machines.
The Junior Electric stood about 30 cm tall with six burners and an oven. The electric cord plugged into a light fixture socket. Children played with it while sitting on the floor or as it sat on a table. A visitor to the Expo declared the miniature range “the greatest electrical novelty in years.” Cooking by electricity in any form was still innovative—George A. Hughes had introduced his eponymous electric range just five years earlier. When the Junior Electric came along, less than a third of U.S. households had been wired for electric lights.
How electricity turned cooking into a science
One reason to give little girls working toy stoves was so they could learn how to differentiate between a hot flame and low heat and get a feel for cooking without burning the food. These are skills that come with experience. Directions like “bake until done in a moderate oven,” a common line in 19th-century recipes, require a lot more tacit knowledge than is needed to, say, throw together a modern boxed brownie mix. The latter comes with detailed instructions and assumes you can control your oven temperature to within a few degrees. That type of precision simply didn’t exist in the 19th century, in large part because it was so difficult to calibrate wood- or coal-burning appliances. Girls needed to start young to master these skills by the time they married and were expected to handle the household cooking on their own.
Electricity changed the game.
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