Science as a Selling Point

With the continuous technological advancement there is an emphasis on the scientific superiority of developing kitchen range technology, especially with the popularization and advertisement of electrical and gas ranges. Early electric range catalogues devoted sections to explaining the ability of their products, emphasizing their benefits over conventional wood and/or coal stoves specifically. These technological advancements needed to be pushed while maintaining the same selling features that people already had come to expect from other stoves of the time, like the look or durability. The key to modernization spreading to the kitchen is the electric range and all it can offer as the better alternative. Scientifically it is said that it will keep your kitchen in order and economically help save money through a low-cost electricity bill (theoretically).

Another point of note is the language choice in some of these catalogues. Below in the flipbook of McClary’s electric ranges it features a lengthier advertisement about the dependability of electric ranges with the catalogue entries interspersed. This text, while describing the duties of a typical housewife and how it would benefit her does not limit the consumers descriptor to housewife, instead using things like ‘cook.’ They do still refer to women as the ones who would be able to give personal accounts as to how the product works well, but the overall portrayal comes across gendered differently. This is also likely due to the amount of focus on the science and engineering that went into making these ‘remarkable’ ranges.