Historic Kitchens 1890 to 1920: Design and Development

Plan of a house c1890. The kitchen shows only a sink as being a permanent installation. The chimney beside the sink would be for the stove, which would be connected to the stove by an overhead stovepipe. The stove would likely have had a copper boiler attached to heat hot water. The bathroom behind the chimney was located close to the stove for ease of providing hot water, and warm air for bathing. This bathroom had no toilet facilities: the house had an earth closet on the back porch for sanitary reasons. The pantry would do double duty for food storage and storage for dishes and other utensils.
Around 1900, all things to do with houses were taken over by an exciting wave of modernization. A new type of housing in the form of California Bungalows became popular across North America. Street cars made it possible to buy food from grocery stores in smaller quantities, making bulk food storage unnecessary. City water was connected to most houses between 1900 and 1920 in towns and cities, making wells, and carrying water outdated. Water heaters were connected to stoves, allowing hot water for both sinks and baths to be conveniently available. And ice boxes were common in homes, soon to be replaced by early refrigerators, which were introduced in the 1920’s.
Combined with this progress was the introduction (and understanding) of the necessity for better sanitary and waste water disposal, both for convenience and for health reasons.
Kitchen cupboards and counters were introduced in the early years of the 1900’s. Tops of counters were wood initially, which was an understandable design transfer of the familiar wood from the kitchen table being used for newly designed countertops. But the quest for the best counter top started then, and has not stopped to this day. Slate, linoleum, arborite, granite, quartz, stainless steel, and other material for countertops, have all been used as designers try to solve the countertop conundrum.

An early installation of kitchen cupboards c1905. Wood counter tops and sink drains were common to begin with. Note the lack of ‘toe-kick’ space. The floor is patterned linoleum. Here it is a ‘mosaic’ lino, which was popular through the 1890’s into the 1910’s. Small pieces of different coloured lino were glued into patterns at the factory and available in rolls. Printed linoleums became popular – known as “Art squares” – from 1905 through the 1920’s and later.
Below are a few samples of linoleum from a 1914-15 catalogue from a Scottish linoleum company – world-wide suppliers of linoleum – showing a range of printed linoleums suitable for kitchens.