Cheating The Junk-Pile: The Purchase And Maintenance Of Household Equipments - free ebook by Ethel R. (Ethel Rose) Peyser

Read as playlist

Cheating The Junk-Pile: The Purchase And Maintenance Of Household Equipments

Ethel R. (Ethel Rose) Peyser

259 chapters

8 hour read

Read as playlist

Selected Chapters

259 chapters

Cheating the Junk-Pile THE PURCHASE AND MAINTENANCE OF HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENTS

Cheating the Junk-Pile THE PURCHASE AND MAINTENANCE OF HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENTS

BY ETHEL R. PEYSER WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARDSON WRIGHT Editor of “House and Garden Magazine” Illustrated by drawings by HARRY RICHARDSON and by photographs NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue Copyright, 1922, BY E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY All Rights Reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Courtesy of Central Oil and Gas Stove Company BUNGALOW AND PALACE CAN BE FED WITH THE NEWER OIL RANGES WITH PLENTY OF SPACE AND OVENS To “HOME AND MOTHER” The Experience of Bot

36 minute read

Read Chapter

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book cannot go on its way without acknowledging Richardson Wright, Editor of House and Garden Magazine , at whose request the chapters were written, as the source of it and as the stimulus to the gathering of the material. I also want to acknowledge the unflagging services of Celia Arbeit, his secretary, who at every point helped in collating the straying text and furtive photographs. I must not forget the manufacturers, who have supplied me with information, illustration, and enthusiasm, a

38 minute read

Read Chapter

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

Ignorant buying is the junk-pile’s subsistence. This book is in no way intended to be a book on household efficiency, in the usual sense of the word—it is no religio-culinaris, no domestic Baedecker or home Taylor. It is merely meant to be a means to the purchase and care of the best household equipments and to be an instruction before not after the purchase is made. Further, it is meant to cheat the junk-pile, by inspiring the buyer to get the maximum advantage out of every purchase of the thin

1 minute read

Read Chapter

INTRODUCTION THE HOUSEWIFE AS MANAGER AND PURCHASING AGENT

INTRODUCTION THE HOUSEWIFE AS MANAGER AND PURCHASING AGENT

Several years ago we heard a great deal of talk about women’s place being in the home. The slogan was used as a campaign challenge and as a sneer. It was bandied up and down the country-side until we got pretty tired of hearing it. Since the privilege of voting has been given women and since their weight is being felt in elections, the cry has died down. The simple reason is that neither the employment of women in war-work nor the radical challenges of the ultra-feminist has altered the fundamen

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Technical Terms

Some Technical Terms

When we hear short-circuit mentioned, what does it mean to us? Well, it should mean that the path of the electricity (electric circuit) has been suddenly shortened, the electricity has escaped through the ground or over another conductor. Insulation is the covering by which the escape of electricity through the wire is made impossible. Always see to it that the insulation is in perfect condition. All wires must be insulated. In damp places rubber covered wire must be used. Wires must always be p

6 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER II KEEPING OUT OF HOT WATER

CHAPTER II KEEPING OUT OF HOT WATER

T here is never any magic about household equipment. You must not expect to do the impossible. If you have a dishwasher you must not expect it to do any more processes of washing than you expect of your player piano of playing. The dishwasher is to wash, the piano to play. Many women have said, “I think a dishwasher is a nuisance, you have to stack your dishes, hand-scrape pots and pans, carry water by the pailful and then have the job of cleaning the dishwasher itself. The only thing it does is

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Requirements of the Home Laundry

Requirements of the Home Laundry

A satisfactory laundry depends on:— 1. The location of room, its relation to outdoor drying and its relation to the source of supply of incoming laundry. 2. Proper floor, ceiling and walls. All joints curved, no corners. 3. Selection of equipment. The types and kinds best fitted to size of family and room. 4. The advantageous disposal of appliances purchased. 5. Thorough instruction of operators in the use of the machinery, as a good machine is useless unless the operator knows the requirements.

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Generally Speaking

Generally Speaking

A good equipment for a house with six in the family and three to four servants is as follows: A tiled floor. The large blue tile is interesting and less glaring for the floor than the white. Linoleum floors too are splendid and cream walls. Washer 1 ⁄ 3 h. p.; solid copper lined with planished tin to prevent corrosion, white enamel ironing machine, two rolls; clothes dryer with four heating units; clothes boiler solid copper lined with planished tin with screen for holding clothes off the bottom

32 minute read

Read Chapter

The Electric Ironer

The Electric Ironer

A great fuss has been made about setting the clock ahead one hour to save time and daylight, but little attention has been given the problem of saving four hours every ironing day by means of electricity and the ironing machine. A good machine, unlike the mangle which only folds and is not heated, should be able to iron at the rate of seven or eight feet per minute. In this way the ordinary ironing can be done four times as quickly as by the old method. Many a house-wife without a maid has found

4 minute read

Read Chapter

An Extraordinary Advance

An Extraordinary Advance

The above is the usual list of machines made to-day but there is an unusual one now on the market. This one works entirely by electricity, it can be heated by gas or electricity. There are no levers to handle, no treadles to tread. It works completely by a switch and dial. The little finger is sufficient only to do the job if all your other fingers were disabled! It is a very convenient size for family use and has been in use now long enough to assure perfection of adaptability for the home. In

46 minute read

Read Chapter

Good Points

Good Points

In some cases the gas burner and electric heater are divided in the center so that the burner can be used on warm work without scorching the unused part of the roll. The machines should be so made that they are comparatively easy to clean. Levers are not quite as good as the automatic, adjustable feed-board, which insures ease of control. It is worked by raising and lowering. This brings the roll in contact with the ironing surface, the same principle as a hand iron is brought to and from its re

55 minute read

Read Chapter

Power and Fuel

Power and Fuel

Gas, gasoline and electricity are the fuels used to heat the machines. Electricity and hand-power turn them. Motors come from 1 ⁄ 8 to 1 ⁄ 4 horse power depending on the size of the machine. When buying one, be sure to tell agent whether you have Alternating Current (A. C.) or Direct Current (D. C.) and what voltage you have. Motors are generally supplied 110, 220 volts D. C. and 60 Cycle 110, or 220 volts A. C. (We are not considering here the belt driven larger sizes.) About 7 ⁄ 8 of a pint of

47 minute read

Read Chapter

Size

Size

The household models come 46″, 42″, 37″, 32″ actual ironing widths. The 46″ and 42″ seem to be popular with some manufacturers. The former is for 2 1 ⁄ 2 yards or 90″ wide and 22″ small linen, and the latter for 2 1 ⁄ 4 yards or 81″ wide or 20″ small linen. The 37″ for 2 yards-wide linen. Size 32″ takes up actually about 42″ × 26″ of floor space, the 37″—47″ × 26″, the 46″—58″ × 25″, etc. There is one ironing machine on the market that is separate from its base so that it can be set up in an apa

57 minute read

Read Chapter

How To Operate

How To Operate

You light the burners on these machines as you light the gas, turn the electric switch and iron. It is quite simple and safe. Many of the machines have a pilot light to tell when the current (electric) is on or off. To heat by electricity all you do is to attach the cord to the ordinary wall socket. A hand-power machine is driven by turning a handle. Thirty-five turns a minute is the right speed. It can be converted any time into a belt-driven machine and attached to the washing machine or anyth

55 minute read

Read Chapter

A Few Pertinent Questions And Answers

A Few Pertinent Questions And Answers

How long would it take to iron a table cloth by the machine? About three or four minutes in comparison to twenty-five or thirty by the expert laundress using an electric iron. A saving in current and time. What about handsome linens with heavy initials? “The pad on the roller should be plenty soft enough to imbed not only the initials but carry buttons and not break them!” “What things can’t you iron with it?” “Only fancy waists and skirts. Laces can be beautifully done and, of course, all the t

45 minute read

Read Chapter

The Washing Machine

The Washing Machine

The variety of washing machines on the market to-day are scheduled in three figures. The following will give you an idea of the better known types from which to weed out yours. A. Types 1. Rotary or cylinder. In which the wash is put into a perforated cylinder which revolves through the soapy water. 2. Oscillating. In which the wash is put into the machine and is washed by being shaken back and forth with enough friction and motion to clean clothes thoroughly. The bottoms of these machines are c

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Dryers

Dryers

“What about the dryers?” They are one of the things that you could get along without if you wanted to waste time in drying. They are expensive to buy, but you are never held up by weather. They dry clothes a good color and you do not miss the sun. They are heated by their own heat, electric or gas, or can be attached to the coal stove and get the overflow heat. They are made to allow no heat to escape even when extended. (See illustration .) Up until late years women not convicts have been time

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Theory and Practice

Theory and Practice

It has been imagined that sun and wind alone dry clothes but the fact is that air is the drying medium and therefore the best dryers provide a good circulation of air plus heat. Dry air has a tremendous love for moisture and eats it up as a blotter eats up ink. The warmer the air the more moisture it will hug. This would seem enough, just to bake the clothes, but baking does not remove odors and does render them yellow; they are unventilated and smell like the laundry, so people are prone to say

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Superficial Points

Superficial Points

All parts upon which clothes hang should be non-rusting. The racks must pull out without any expenditure of strength and must run quietly. Racks must be within the reach of the average sized woman, to avoid stretching. The heating burner must be simple and easily reached so that you can tell at a glance how much heat you have turned on. There must be ample screening so that should a garment fall it cannot possibly get scorched. The finish of these dryers must be smooth, without protuberances whi

53 minute read

Read Chapter

Electricity Or None

Electricity Or None

A very good little dryer, simple as a broiler, is the over-head slatted dryer, which, on a pulley, is spread with clothes and pulled up to the ceiling where the clothes dry by the risen heat of the room. In a small kitchen where the washing and cooking is done, it is a real boon, and in the laundry, too, it is a genuine convenience. The rack is about 32″ to 64″, and on the ceiling it is comfortable and useful and out of the way. It comes in two sizes. Your clothes go directly from the wringer to

39 minute read

Read Chapter

Tables and Shelves

Tables and Shelves

Shelves in a laundry are very much more useful than a quarter of a dozen tables or to buy two or three tables for laundries and abandon them for needed foot room, yet long for some room to put things on. The steel unit of shelves is a very convenient way out. By using a continuous running shelf, like an amplified plate rail, any place in the laundry can be a handy one for placing a bit of soap, a clothes-pin, washing powder, clothing waiting for starching, or any other thing. Steps could be save

47 minute read

Read Chapter

Ironing Boards

Ironing Boards

There are many varieties of ironing boards on the market. Some fold back against the wall and some do not. Some fold back in self closets against the wall. Some are adjustable to different heights, others are not. They come in various sizes and finishes and do away with the falling and slipping ironing board which has caused so many useless burns. In large houses the valets have tables such as you can purchase with sleeve boards, swinging bodyguard, supply cabinet for cleaning fluids and brushes

44 minute read

Read Chapter

A Burning Shame

A Burning Shame

When un-electric irons are used, there should be an ample supply of iron holders. If your irons are not of the removable insulated handle type, iron holders of ticking or soft bits of carpet can be used. This sounds very elementary, but many scorchings would not have taken place had the laundress not rushed to get through to save the hurting hand. This is truly a burning shame if anything could so be called. It is possible, too, to get a thin bit of asbestos encased in a bit of ticking and so pr

37 minute read

Read Chapter

The Laundry Chute

The Laundry Chute

Much time could be saved in the laundry if whenever it were possible a chute could be built into which clothes can be thrown and go directly to the laundry where is situated a basket or a terminal closet to receive them. Here stuffing the dumb waiter is obviated, also carrying the clothes in baskets down the lift or just using the ugly clothes hamper in dressing room or bath room. Here is a more or less suggestive plan of arrangement....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

Arrangement

Arrangement

Assuring less expenditure in labor and money. 1. Soiled linen chute in one corner of the room. 2. A table near to sort laundry before washing. 3. Tubs in center of the room to be accessible. 4. After clothes are washed and blued they can be partially dried in dryer and ironed. 5. Then a table on which to place clothes to be ironed. 6. Ironer next in the best light possible and arranged away from wall to permit two people working at it, if necessary. 7. Skirt and sleeve board next. 8. After which

47 minute read

Read Chapter

Flat Irons

Flat Irons

Because there are some dainty things that cannot be put through a machine, electric flatirons are absolutely indispensable in a laundry. For that reason there are many kinds on the market. They are usually made from 2 1 ⁄ 2 ℔s. to 15 ℔s. Most have but one heat, but some have three heats. A traveler will be pleased with the adjustable 3 lb. iron which has a voltage adjustment making it practical with 220 or 110 voltage....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

Soaps And Powders

Soaps And Powders

With the best washing machines you get bad results if you do not use good soaps or cleaning powders. There is a very good powder on the market which not only cleans the clothes well, and leaves no greasy residue, but is really not a soap at all. It combines rapidly with water, and makes a fine suds and cleans very rapidly. For the most part to-day, yellow soaps and white soaps as cleaners are on a par but are not as good for laundry purposes, since the resin in the yellow soap combines unhappily

1 minute read

Read Chapter

To Avoid Blow-Outs

To Avoid Blow-Outs

Perhaps more money is wasted on blow-outs in homes that utilize electricity than any other cause. If you follow the rules, illustrated here and first published by the Edison Company, not only will you save expense in the home, but you will save the Fire Department, which is constantly called upon to save lives and property because of unnecessary fires due to carelessness (Not to electricity) in handling flat irons. The cardinal principle for the use of all electrical appliances is this: When you

1 minute read

Read Chapter

L’Envoie

L’Envoie

Go to the best dealer. Buy the best only; it reduces later costs. Simplicity, safety and serviceability necessary. Avoid machinery with extra parts to be cleaned or upon which injury to attendant or clothes can be perpetrated. Don’t buy until you are perfectly sure by numerous comparisons and other experience what are the best types of machinery to install. Be sure to apply the three S tests: Service, Safety, Simplicity. “I have seen ten vacuum cleaners at the Electrical Show and every one, acco

1 minute read

Read Chapter

“All Is Not Gold, Etc.”

“All Is Not Gold, Etc.”

All vacuum cleaners look charming and shiny and all seem very perfect in the shop! And they all do their stunts beautifully as the skilled operator thrillingly draws designs in the flour or bi-carbonate (clean, unclinging dirt) on the patient carpet. The operator talks glibly, often failing to give the failings of his machine because he doesn’t know them. So the only thing to do is to try it, in your own home, under your own special conditions, and see that it gets under your furniture, removes

57 minute read

Read Chapter

Dust’s Hunting Grounds

Dust’s Hunting Grounds

In your home you have on the floor woolen or grass fabrics; rugs large and small, and carpets, grass rugs and mattings. The carpets or rugs may have a long nap loosely woven (Chinese) Axminster, Wilton, Velvet Chenille or the pile in loops (Brussels) or just woven threads such as ingrain without any nap or pile. Grass rugs (Crex, etc.) and matting are of this kind. It is easily understood that, as the carpet or flooring is walked on, the dust becomes deeply imbedded and gets tangled up in the fi

1 minute read

Read Chapter

We Are Three Kinds!

We Are Three Kinds!

And so ... to have the cleaner that really functions, every machine must be constructed so that it can be easily taken apart and adjusted, and in order to know how to know whether the machine is useful, the following resumé of the kind of cleaners may be of service. These will be treated in functioning classes rather than in technical terminologies. The portable cleaner (we will not discuss the installed types) are divisible into three classes: 1. Using air only as a cleaning agent 2. Using air

2 minute read

Read Chapter

As To Motive Power

As To Motive Power

Motor driven brushes are driven by a belt attached to the motor. It is continually in action when the motor is running except, of course, when the brush is removed for any reason. The surface is continuously swept as the air passes through the nozzle, and there is, of course, more power in the motor driven brush. But its enemies in the friction brush camp aver strongly that the brush is prone by its velocity to wear the carpet! These brushes generally have two rows of spirally wound bristle, and

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Motors!

Motors!

Another battling point is the question of whether the motor put in horizontally into the casting or that which is put in vertically is the better. They all talk glibly on this subject, but heed it not. All that is necessary for the purchaser of a cleaner to know about the motor is that it should be made by a reputable firm, have a good speed that is spectacular and that it be not imbedded too deeply in unnecessary fixings to be oiled and cleaned. The universal motor is best for the average purch

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Requisite Qualities

Requisite Qualities

In short, the satisfactory cleaner must: 1. Sweep loose the adhering dirt such as thread, lint, dust particle, and brush up matted nap or pile to restore color tone. 2. Loosen and shake to the surface ground-in dirt that kills rugs and carpets, so that it can be removed. 3. Have suction enough to carry away all dirt after the soft hair brush loosens it to make it possible. This is about the whole story. And as to the expense of operation, they cost not even as much as an electric iron, and far l

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Pros and Cons

Pros and Cons

But why should you have the installed cleaner? Why not have the portable? The fact is that neither of these cleaners is in competition very directly. But let us quote an expert who has given most of his time to the subject of air cleaning: “There is unquestionably a legitimate field for both types of cleaners, but the stationary type more nearly reaches the ideal.” The next statement of his will explain that: “If we observe the action of the wind in an open field, we find that a gentle breeze wi

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Operation

Operation

With the stationary type cleaner you have no machine to move about—you simply move the tool attached to the hose and the tools are just as light as those of the portable machines. There is no electric connection to make, no electric wire to carry unconsciously along. All there is to be done by the worker is to slip the end of the cleaner hose into the suction pipe opening in the baseboard of the room. A patented device prevents the hose from becoming detached accidentally. The usual tools come w

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Points About the Stoves

Points About the Stoves

As with the gas and wood stove, the main principles must apply in picking them out, with but few additions and omissions. The electric stove is not bothered with its own deterioration by the combustion inside it of oils, woods, coals, cokes, etc., but has, of course, to be well wired, rust protected and insulated against mishap and fire. Accidents are contingent on anything that uses any fuel. With electric stoves it is unnecessary to have large or small storage systems, which makes electricity

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Ovens and Broilers

Ovens and Broilers

There are two kinds of ovens used in the electric stove, from the point of view of heat retention. One of them does not retain the heat completely enough to call itself a fireless cooker oven yet does retain heat to a great degree and cooks well after a little time on the third heat or low heat. The other style guarantees a fireless system of cooking when the electricity is cut off. Strange as it may seem, the largest and most elaborate and the most expensive stoves are not made with the retenti

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Electric Measurements

Electric Measurements

For these electric stoves, special wiring must be effected. They cannot be attached to the ordinary electric socket. It is necessary when ordering a stove to give the voltage of your electric supply. The stoves are usually prepared for 110 volts with two-wire service from street or 110-220 volts with three-wire service. In some stoves the cut-out box is built on the range directly back of the switches. This, then, can be easily opened if anything happens. In the stock stove an extra charge is ma

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Control and Trimmings

Control and Trimmings

Most stoves are equipped with reliable thermometers and also many give charts with the stove to show you exactly what temperatures on that particular stove will accomplish the pop-over, the roast, or the what-not. This eliminates any basis of error. Some, too, have glass ovens which further add to the gaiety of rations. In buying, buy of the best firms, get guarantees, see that your wiring is adequate and that everything is well insulated with asbestos or something of equal value. See to it that

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Dimensions and Care

Dimensions and Care

The heights in stoves vary from a few inches (table ranges) to about 5′. Height to cooking top varies, too; the nearest it comes to 38″ the more comfortable, of course. The new stoves are being made with special emphasis on the height of cooking surfaces. The depth of stoves also varies, from the built-to-order stove which is 33″ to the stock stoves which run even as narrow as 16″, with but three top cooking or heating units instead of the average four. As with all new devices, you must practise

2 minute read

Read Chapter

A Very New Departure

A Very New Departure

On the market, as this goes to press has come the electric stove which, instead of heating by radiant heat (red), cooks by conductivity or black heat. That is, the unit becomes hot throughout and does not burn by becoming red hot. It is claimed in this case that the unit wears longer and that it takes less time to cook therefore less electricity. We have not had time to test this stove so cannot vouch for it except that it is made by very eminent manufacturers and invented by a very distinguishe

2 minute read

Read Chapter

New Devices

New Devices

A recent improvement is a stove with an oven heat-regulating device, absolutely controlling the temperature. Because this device is used by domestic science cooking schools, cooking must be an exact science. No especial training is required to handle this device, and it has no working parts to get out of order; the temperature is simply controlled and maintained by the turn of a wheel. This enables you to bake without opening the oven door. A chart is supplied by which you can cook any kind of d

45 minute read

Read Chapter

The Top

The Top

An interesting feature is that the whole top becomes heated and is usable, whereas in the ordinary four-burner top only four utensils can be used at once. This top is connected with a flue which draws the heat, so that there is no waste of gas. If necessary, the lids can be raised and the flame from the burner will just tip the utensil, the proper position for flames. The oven in this range is so planned that it can be opened from the bottom with either hand. Another stove has a top that is semi

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Regulating Heat

Regulating Heat

When you are ready to put the whole meal in the oven, your instruction card will tell you the correct temperature to set the thermostat. You can then leave the oven unwatched for a period of three to four hours. No preliminary cooking is necessary; in fact, the things can be put on in cold water if necessary; furthermore, the cost of cooking is no more, and sometimes less, than with the old-fashioned hit or miss method. Canning with this oven is simplicity itself, as there is no need to lift the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Burners

Burners

The burners on all the best stoves are regulated by the gas companies, from whom it is wise to buy, unless you are purchasing the installed, made-to-order stove. One firm emphasizes its burner because it spreads well; it claims there is a saving of gas, which is quite true. This stove also stresses its glass oven door. Now the glass oven door is a fine thing, but when meats are being cooked, the glass becomes greased, and unless cleaned off at once may leave furrows. The cabinet stove is the typ

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Range Facts

Range Facts

Don’t use a big flame when food or water is boiling. Nearly all the good stoves have air and gas regulating devices and with each stove the method is explained to the purchaser. Remember that you want a blue flame, that the tip only should touch the utensil and that the yellow flame may mean too much gas and cause smoking or it may mean too little air. Keep your flame at the blue point, with no yellow or white tip. Before lighting any burner, try all the gas valves to be sure that they are close

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Wickless Ranges

Wickless Ranges

The wickless, as its name implies, has no wick but carries the heat directly to the cooking vessel and therefore shortens the cooking time a little as the heat reaches the spot more quickly than it can in the long, non-flame touching type of range. In this type of range a kindler is employed. This kindler is a round asbestos ring (costs about 10 cents to replace) which lies in the burner bowl and is slightly corrugated at the top and stiffened by a metal band. Its function is not that of a wick

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Flame Regulation

Flame Regulation

Experience is the best teacher in the way of knowing where you must set the lever to get the hottest flame. Sometimes dependent on varying conditions, the flame may be highest when the lever is over the 12th division of the dial; sometimes it may be at 6 or 7 on your range. This sort of thing you learn by knowing your range. Some oil will, of course, be left in the burner after the light is turned off. Therefore you must expect it to burn a little while after you have turned your lever to “out.”

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Fireless Stoves

Fireless Stoves

In the chapters on gas and electric stoves, you will find there mentioned the fact that there are some stoves so built that they have fireless ovens. That simply means that they are so insulated and constructed that when the cooking has reached a certain point, the current of electricity or the gas can be turned off (in some cases turning itself off automatically) and the rest of the cooking can be done by the fireless process or on retained heat. This, of course, is the ideal way, because then

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Cooking

Cooking

After you become accustomed to the fireless, you will find that cooking in it is quite definite and the time and the schedule can be heeded like clock-work. Do not let the food cool in the cooker, or you will have the cooker odor to battle with and you will always have olfactory souvenirs. The cooling and steaming in the box will do this only too well. Air your utensils and cooker after each usage or your food will have a uniform flavor which to say the least is most unpleasant. Remember that it

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Dropping The Maids

Dropping The Maids

“But,” she went on, “you’d be surprised how Gregory hated the idea at first of a manless or maidless entourage. He said he couldn’t bear to think of me messing with stoves, etc., and now you should see him! He loves it—he helps me too, and says it makes him think of our early days—and he loves me to wait on him and be alone with him.” “The kitchenette as the domestic canteen has come to stay,” Mrs. Reardon said, and then looking about her with an amused flash in her eye, “but your kitchenette, d

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Necessary Equipment

The Necessary Equipment

It need consist only of a couple of three-foot shelves, so compact are the stoves and ranges made for light housekeeping. But roominess is no crime, so multitudinous are the tools to play with. Smallness, however, is unusually synonymous with convenience in kitchenettes. Nearly every professional woman and many men in the large cities are banded into a huge League of Rations by the sympathetic tie of small kitchenettes. These compact cooking outfits make the lives simple, adaptable and healthful

5 minute read

Read Chapter

How It is Made

How It is Made

The booklets about the refrigerator are entrancing! The pictures bring to mind marble halls, à la Alma Tadema, and you might wonder why he never used a modern refrigerator in one of his Roman paintings! Courtesy of the Kelvinator Co. WHEN THERE IS A CELLAR USED FOR THE LAUNDRY, THE ICE-MAKER COILS CAN BE SET DOWN THERE WITH EASE AND SIMPLICITY. HERE TOO IS AN ELECTRIC IRONER AND WASHER INSTALLED, WITH A VERY NEAT TOOL RACK! But you will remember that the linings of the refrigerator are not of ma

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Nine Points

The Nine Points

Whereas some refrigerator owners may keep butlers, the following points are more essential to the maidless home, because effort and energy and strength are saved to say naught of money and ice if conditions are such that the ice will not fade away rapidly and cleaning have to be done under difficulties of construction. Therefore, to preserve the sanitation of the home and the consequent sanity of the world before buying a refrigerator the following Nine Points should be laid before the Kitchen D

49 minute read

Read Chapter

The Insulation

The Insulation

How for instance is a minimum temperature to be kept? Chiefly, by insulation—this is a strictly mechanical term understood by motorists and engineers and must be understood by the housewife, who is a domestic or kitchen engineer if she is anything. The low temperature is kept by keeping out the outside heat and keeping in the inside cold! After much experiment, it has been found that the walls, floors and doors of every refrigerator must have at least one air space, from six to nine layers of in

40 minute read

Read Chapter

As to Ice Chambers

As to Ice Chambers

The ice compartment should be above, and to one side, so that the cold air from the melting ice can descend, as is the custom of cold air, and can rise again as it gets heated in its contact with the provisions and pass up over the ice, be cooled and pass down again with its collected odors through the drain. This is what is called air circulation, and when the ice box is properly constructed, and when the ice compartment is kept full, the air is in constant motion, traveling over and over again

3 minute read

Read Chapter

How to Use a Refrigerator

How to Use a Refrigerator

But if you have everything to assure perfection in refrigeration and know not how to use it, it is as if you had none at all. Note this amendment to the nine points: 1. Keep your ice chamber full , even after Dry Laws. It saves ice and preserves your food. The circulating air will only go “over the top” as far as the bulk of ice drives it. 2. Never put any food in the ice compartment. It must play an infinite solitaire. 3. Keep the doors shut, and open them as little as possible. 4. If the ice g

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XII THE PASSING OF THE ICE MAN

CHAPTER XII THE PASSING OF THE ICE MAN

“H ow would you like to be the ice man?” is the lyrical refrain to an ancient ditty that is getting more and more obsolete every day, for there is a mechanical conspiracy to oust the ice man from his age-long position as purveyor to the home. So do ice men, gladiators and dogs have their day and relinquish to machinery their evanescent glories. Nowadays everybody knows that there are domestic refrigerating plants for home use that displace the ice man and in which pure ice for table use can be m

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Fly Costs

Fly Costs

The fly costs the United States of America, it is estimated, about 350 million dollars a year because of its contaminating influence on the health and the weal of the population. It is alone responsible for nearly 90% of the intestinal and typhoid fever cases. The answer to this must be: Every one must fight the fly; and the moral of that is: the incinerator is one way of getting rid of garbage and at the same time starving out the fly. There is no room in the house in which cleanliness is so im

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Incinerator

The Incinerator

The incinerator, besides being the burner of garbage, is a garbage container. It burns garbage without smoke, noxious gases and floating inorganic matter. If the stove could do this, the incinerator would not be necessary, as suggested above. But it can’t, especially if it be a gas or electric stove. Every incinerator, if it be any good at all, is so designed as not only to burn the waste but reburn the gases, etc., before the products of combustion reach the outer air. Every manufacturer will t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Objects

Objects

The large installed incinerator should be able to burn up bits of paper, sweepings, old boxes, soiled rags, garbage, smelly waste and reduce them to sterile, odorless, clean ash. And if these things are not done without clogging up your flues with oily combustion residues, etc., you might as well burn your stuff in the kitchen stoves. The ash lift can be used for various things. The ordinary portable type is primarily for garbage but some get away with whatever is put in them....

23 minute read

Read Chapter

Construction Points

Construction Points

In the construction of the portable incinerator, the one that is placed in the room and not below stairs, you must be sure it is so built that the heat from burning is not communicated to the room to heat it up. This means then that the maker must think of supplying the apparatus with sufficient insulation to retain the enormous heat generated inside which is somewhere around 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. Just as your ice box is insulated against the cold air getting out, and the warm air getting in,

51 minute read

Read Chapter

Economy

Economy

The cost of operation is practically nil. The fuel used is gas or coal. Gas is the best method, the writer thinks. It takes only about twenty to thirty cubic feet of gas per burning, as the gas is needed only to start the operation and the evaporated garbage burns itself thereafter. Or should! There is a type of portable incinerator which needs no fuel, just burns by ignition of dry waste which burns the wet as it dries out....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

Capacity

Capacity

The incinerators are made in various sizes, burn from one bushel of waste and upwards, depending on the whys and wherefores of its uses—whether it is the installed type, or the stove type, or for what home or institution it is designed. The stove types are purchasable in sizes ranging from 15 inches (wide) 15 inches deep and 30 inches high, to respectively 31 × 34 × 64 inches, and they range in price from about $70. and upward. (It isn’t safe, of course, to give prices to-day on anything as they

25 minute read

Read Chapter

Casing

Casing

They are usually built of very heavy serviceable castings, brass and sheet steel, well lined and insulated. Everything is well hinged and the grates, which are removable, are made so as to be easily taken out when it is necessary to remove the ashes or substances not burnable except in smelters....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

Summary

Summary

So almost in conclusion the incinerator is sanitary, destroys refuse, destroys it by burning not only the garbage but the products of the garbage combustion at a minimum expense, and it should sterilize itself and the flue in the process. And it does away forever with the back bending disposal of garbage into low cans for the openings into which the garbage is put are high and comforting. However, with all this we must not forget that garbage, if it can be expeditiously taken off the premises at

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Good Ventilation

Good Ventilation

The requisites then for good ventilation are: 1. Equable temperature from about 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and the moderate relative humidity or moisture of 45 to 65 per cent. In order to keep the room moist in winter it is well to keep a pan of water on the radiator. Regular humidifyers can be bought for this purpose. 2. Clear air, free from impurities such as dust, insects, oily vapors, soot, etc. 3. Odorless air (you have been sickened by the use even of the most costly of perfumes!) free f

56 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Devices

Some Devices

Any device to be useful to the home must, of course, be convenient, economical, safe to operate, and durable. Well, let’s begin with the kitchen; for this ventilation is more necessary than any place else in the house. Not only is it difficult to keep the kitchen in equable temperature, but to have it cool often means a draft, and a draft means a cold for the cook, and a cold for the cook means danger to the whole household. Then there are odors from the kitchen. These are continually getting lo

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Weather Strips as Aid in Ventilation

Weather Strips as Aid in Ventilation

No consideration of ventilation of houses could be complete without a few words on the value of weather strips. It is strange too that this precaution in the home is so little known and that the house-wife has so little knowledge of their infinite good. Disregarding them as a factor in the cleanliness and noiselessness of the home, disregarding in this chapter the intriguing facts of their manufacture and application, they are adjunct at their best in the home because: They reduce the possibilit

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Plumbing Laws

Plumbing Laws

As will be seen by the following excerpts from the plumbing laws of New York City, the ordinary housewife need not worry about transgressing the law, as everything, from the material used to the size of it and the laying of it, is controlled. And the plumber is supposed to know these rules before he is licensed. But it is in no way as glorious as poetic license! All the materials must be of the best quality, free from defects, and all work must be executed in a thorough, workmanlike manner. All

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Further Provision

Further Provision

Where there is no sewer in the street or avenue, and it is possible to construct a private sewer to connect in an adjacent street or avenue, a private sewer must be constructed. It must be laid outside the curb, under the roadway of the street. All pipes and traps should, where possible, be exposed to view. They should always be readily accessible for inspection and repairing. In every building where there is a leader connected to the drain, if there are any plumbing fixtures, there must be at l

51 minute read

Read Chapter

Definitions

Definitions

The term “private sewer” is applied to main sewers that are not constructed by and under the supervision of the Department of Public Works. The term “house sewer” is applied to that part of the main drain or sewer extending from a point two feet outside of the outer front wall of the building, vault or area to its connection with public sewer, private sewer or cesspool. The term “house drain” is applied to that part of the main horizontal drain and its branches inside the walls of the building,

48 minute read

Read Chapter

The Trap

The Trap

Most important from the hygiene point of view is the trap, which is a curved pipe permitting the last of a flow of water to remain in the pipe to prevent a back flow of sewage gas into the house. There are for use various forms of traps under different circumstances which, of course, are entirely the plumber’s business. In hotels and large institutions, and in some large homes, a grease trap is built in the sink which is so constructed as to separate the grease from the water, which obviates clo

30 minute read

Read Chapter

Fresh Air Inlets and Main Traps

Fresh Air Inlets and Main Traps

Fresh air inlets and main traps are also for the prevention of odors and gases coming directly from the sewer. The entrance of these gases often takes place, even though the plumbing is excellent, by the settling of the floors and foundation rendering the soil pipes defective. The question of soil pipes, etc., is sufficiently covered by the plumbing regulations so far as not to need any explanations here. Every sink, of course, must have its own trap. The following are a few excerpts from the la

25 minute read

Read Chapter

Sewers, Drains and Traps

Sewers, Drains and Traps

must be of extra heavy cast-iron. When found in a leaky or defective condition, shall not be repaired or replaced except with heavy cast-iron pipe. The house drain and its branches must be of extra heavy cast-iron when underground, and of extra heavy cast-iron or galvanized wrought iron or steel when above ground. The house-drain must properly connect with the house sewer at a point two feet outside of the outer front vault or area wall of the building. An arched or other proper opening must be

44 minute read

Read Chapter

Soil and Waste Lines

Soil and Waste Lines

All main, soil, waste or vent pipes must be of iron, steel or brass. Soil and waste pipes must have proper Y or TY branches for all fixture connections. The diameters of soil and waste pipes must not be less than those given in the following table:...

14 minute read

Read Chapter

Vent Pipes

Vent Pipes

All vent pipe lines and main branches must be of iron, steel or brass. They must be increased in diameter and extended above the roof as required for waste-pipes. They may be connected with the adjoining soil or waste line well above the highest fixture, but this will not be permitted when there are fixtures on more than six floors. Branch vent pipes shall be kept above the top of all connecting fixtures, so as to prevent the use of vent pipes as soil pipes or waste-pipes. Branch vent pipes shou

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Sinks and Connections

Sinks and Connections

The entry of water to the kitchen is effective through faucets, for the most part, in some sort of a sink. What then should these sinks be, and what should be the nature of their connections? For the most part, the building law will take care of the connections, but you should see to it that the traps are below the sinks and are in plain sight, and that the materials used, for your own good, should not only be within the law, but a little above it. Another thing you must remember, in ordering si

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Second Grades

Second Grades

Solid porcelain sinks are all made from the same material, yet the action of fire affects some differently from others. For instance, a workman may fail to work out of the wet mould a bit of air in the clay, and when this piece is fired in the kiln the air condenses and bursts out and the result is a slight streak; or a bit of copper may get into the clay causing a green stain on the piece. When such things occur, it does not alter the value of the sink, but the high grade manufacturer marks the

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Patented Materials

Patented Materials

Sinks of patented materials, with trade names, which are often metals with a porcelain-like covering, also come in many sizes and in many designs, and are, as inferred above, quite as valuable in usefulness and beauty as solid porcelain, with one exception, of course, that under some remote circumstance a chipping off of the material may occur. But the makers of solid porcelain sinks make a metal-coated slop sink where an extra heavy thudding, by pails and cleaning instruments, is apt to occur.

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Outlets

Outlets

The question of outlets in the sink is simple. The outlet should not be perforated so minutely as to prevent rapid exit of the water, and yet the holes must not be large enough to permit foreign matter to clog the pipes of the plumbing system. Very often it is wise to have a wire net over the outlet. Some sinks are equipped with stoppers and with cylindrical outlets familiar in wash basins and bath tubs. In these sinks the water is kept in until it is time to release it, obviating the necessity

28 minute read

Read Chapter

Faucets

Faucets

Faucets are usually of metal, and high priced ones are of enamel. Some sinks have two sets of faucets, two in each set. Some have a higher faucet, a goose neck pattern, for filling carafes. The metal faucets are generally brass and nickel plated. Brass corrodes and is hard to keep clean. The nickel are very satisfactory but cost more. The enamel are quite ideal because the polishing is absolutely obviated. In this case it is a toss-up to the purchaser what it is best to save—time or money. Then

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Filters

Filters

The question of filters, (See Chapter XXXII , Polishing The Water Supply) which are attached to faucets, is full of danger, as there are only a few good ones on the market, and those that are good can be rendered, through careless handling, much more of a menace than the ordinary water supplied to you. The porcelain-like candle type is one of the best but not absolutely fool-proof. The water sifts and filters through this porcelain candle. If this is sent away to be thoroughly baked, at regular

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Safe and Refrigerator Waste-Pipes

Safe and Refrigerator Waste-Pipes

Safe and refrigerator waste-pipes must be of galvanized iron, and be not less than 1 1 ⁄ 4 ″ in diameter nor larger than 1 1 ⁄ 2 ″ in diameter with pipe branches at least 1″ in diameter with strainers over each inlet. Safe and refrigerator waste-pipes shall not be trapped. They must discharge over a properly water-supplied, trapped sink, with trap vented unless an approved anti-siphon trap is installed in the manner specified in Rule 91, such sink to be publicly placed, and not more than 4′ abov

50 minute read

Read Chapter

Homilies

Homilies

When I started to write this article I thought I would give specific plumbing rules, but the buying of fixtures is really all that is necessary for the housewife to know, as all first class plumbers know the rules of the code. So the best plan to adopt is to use the best plumber. Even if he be expensive, he will save your money in the end. And remember, always use one in your vicinity for, if you do not, you will be very unpopular, as you will know when some dire emergency emerges! If your pipes

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Kitchen Cutlery

Kitchen Cutlery

The subject of kitchen cutlery, the one which this chapter is dealing with, does not interest itself in silver plate and all the cutlery so beautifully made for table use. The same general principals apply, but there is too little space here to go into the detail of pattern, brands and general details of table cutlery. However, the blades for most cutting articles are made of shear steel, and for this crucible cast steel and forged steel are used. The essential parts of the process of cutlery ma

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Variety in Knife-Life

Variety in Knife-Life

The kinds of knife in which the housewife is particularly interested are: carvers, vegetable slicers, parers, fruit, cleavers, etc. Subdivided, they are: paring, bread, meat, poultry, carving, cake, boning, paring (small pocket type style), spatula, lemon, grape and orange, curved in French, German and American fashions, cleavers and scrapers. Where it is necessary for a knife to conform to shape in paring, a flexible knife is more comfortable than a stiff one. Therefore, if you want a vegetable

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Home Butchering

Home Butchering

In some homes a certain amount of butchering is done in the kitchen, sometimes to save expense and sometimes for certain and very fine results if the chef is a jewel. To this end there are some good implements on the market: strong, well balanced and riveted to give good service. Knife blades for this work range from 5″ to 14″ in length and are in various styles. The cleaver is a good thing to have should the butcher sometimes neglect to break a furtive bone. These come in pleasant weights and d

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Handles

Handles

The question of handles is interesting because the knife without the handle, however sharp it may be, is of little use. The main question is of ease in gripping, in the balance, and in the duration of time that the blade will stay firm in the handle. There are many ways of accomplishing these things: in some cases the tang of the blade is cemented in the handle. This is done where the knife is used with little pressure and strength, such as the feather-curling knife of the milliner; there are so

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Sharpening

Sharpening

The housewife’s best method of sharpening or rather keeping the edges straight and keenly cutting is the steel. When the knife really gets dull it should be ground. The use of the stone or carborundum by the ordinary operator often wears the steel. However, if the use of the grinder or the stone or the carborundum is really known, time and money will be saved in the sharpening process. Sharp knives save temper, save food to a great degree, and therefore if you can’t sharpen knives yourself send

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XVII THE ANCIENT WOOD IMPLEMENTS

CHAPTER XVII THE ANCIENT WOOD IMPLEMENTS

I n these days of metals, electricity and enamels, you are very prone to forget that there is still virtue in the ancient wood, which with true aristocratic gentleness, has given way to those more parvenu products that boast their sanitary qualities. To-day there are still things of wood for the kitchen, pantry and laundry which are retained to advantage and other things which can be kept, if not with advantage, at least for utility. Some purchasers have wasted time in their zeal to kill entirel

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Annealing

Annealing

Annealing is the process brought to such a perfection to-day that glass can be made almost shell proof. In fact glass for automobile windows was and is being made that when it is struck will not shatter but will simply crack or craze. This process is one of careful heating and cooling many times repeated. It makes the glass more elastic so that the particles are in more of a state of equilibrium and can be struck without danger of breaking....

22 minute read

Read Chapter

Manufacture

Manufacture

The basis of all glass is soda, aluminum or oxide of lead in combination with silica of sand. Doesn’t this sound hiphalutin? Well, it isn’t. Then this is heated to something like 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and when in molten form is blown with air incorporators into the requisite shapes. You no doubt have seen glass blown at bazaars or fairs. But of course this blowing in the factory is done with huge blowers. The best glass is dependent on its base as it is combined with lead. This combination is

31 minute read

Read Chapter

Color

Color

The color in glass is given to it by the use of metal oxides, blue is derived from copper oxide, yellow from iron oxide, the stunning reds from gold. Don’t these facts, make glass more interesting to you? Rock crystal is the fashion now and probably will persist. But don’t, for goodness’ sake, be untechnical enough to say anything but polished engraved glass, when you speak of it! The old time glass with intersecting canyons cut in it which left tell tale gouges in one’s fingers, is dead and if

29 minute read

Read Chapter

How it Differs from Cut Glass

How it Differs from Cut Glass

Cut glass is decorated with geometric lines by means of steel wheels and carborundum used for the cutting. Then these lines are smoothed with stone wheels and given a high polish. Some manufacturers press in the design by putting the glass into moulds in its moulten state, but this makes the cheaper glass commonly called Pressed to imitate the cut variety. Then the glass is cooled and the effects are often good enough to fool the ordinary person. Cut glass can always be distinguished from the pr

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Colored Glass

Colored Glass

What about colored glass? There is much of it about, some of it the frank imitation of the old stuff and some of it the real old thing. It is very popular. The reason it isn’t epidemic is because one has to have all the fixings with it to use it well and to be au fait . Unless one has center pieces and side dishes and flowers and, to go even to extremes, old chairs and antique refectory tables, colored glass gives a vagrant restless spotty cast to the table! You know what it means to have everyt

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Cooking Glass

Cooking Glass

No other utensils on the market combine as these do, beauty, durability, economy and cleanliness even if the initial cost is more. You see they save fuel, because they cook food more rapidly, they save the cook’s time and the waitress’s time because they save the cooking time, and because they are easy to clean, collecting no burn to be forced off and no food to be laboriously scraped away. Besides all this, the food can be served directly from the stove without putting it into another dish for

33 minute read

Read Chapter

Plate-Glass

Plate-Glass

Of late, plate-glass has been taking an important part in the household. This glass differs from other glass in the way it is made. In short it is spread over iron tables in a molten state and cut and trimmed to measure. It is made more carefully than other flat glass and of the finest material. It is, of course, very carefully annealed to make it as soft and as little brittle as possible. For the tops of bureaus, dressing tables, desks, shelves, medicine cabinets, etc., it has no equal. It is e

2 minute read

Read Chapter

The Lists

The Lists

Our omissions in this listing in any case are due to personal experience and choice and also to a feeling that there are many things that can be omitted when the kitchen is started and be put in later when exigencies appear and the income is greater. We have purposely not added up the list to get an aggregate expenditure as it would mean little when cheaper or more expensive materials can be substituted. Therefore we have given but the individual costs which can be combined in the ways you desir

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Cabinets and Conveniences

Cabinets and Conveniences

Were we fitting out a kitchen we would either buy a kitchen cabinet or have one built in the home of the steel unit type. We have not included it in the list for fear of being too commanding, and it can be dispensed with if the shelving and hanging room is sufficient; though we venture to say not quite so delightful will be the kitchen atmosphere without one. The kitchen cabinet in steel costs from about $92 upward; in wood $89 up. Devices on which to hang the pots and pans and house the knives

1 minute read

Read Chapter

China

China

China for the kitchen can be had at varying prices depending largely on the part of the country where you live—from ten cents upward if there is a dime shop around. Yet there are inexpensive sets to be had from time to time at from $20 upward—and downward. It isn’t always necessary to buy at the beginning a whole set of china for the kitchen. Six of each thing ought to be plenty for a time, counting breakage, which is perennial. Platters for the ice box in enamel are excellent, but if you have e

30 minute read

Read Chapter

The Cook Book

The Cook Book

Last but not by any means least is the cook book. For what availeth it if you have utensils by the score if you know not how to fill them and manage foods in them? There are many books on the market of fame and repute, but we have yet to see one for the beginner that outdoes the Home Science Cook Book , by Anna Barrows and Mary B. Lincoln. Both these women have cooked and lectured and taught the science of cookery, and, what is more, they know its practise. In this book are to be found simple, b

2 minute read

Read Chapter

The Processes of Canning

The Processes of Canning

The processes of canning are well known—the cleansing of fruits and containers, the scalding or blanching, cold dipping, packing, processing, air releasing and sealing. For these processes the following articles are used: Colander; steamer for blanching; preserving kettle when preserving; ladle; measuring cup; funnel; canner or aluminum or enamel roaster-canner; strainer; dipper; silver knife; shallow trays; pans; vegetable brushes for cleaning; sieve; squares of cheese cloth also for blanching;

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Preserving and Canning Jars

Preserving and Canning Jars

Probably of all the pernickety parts of preserving and canning operations, the jar question is the most jarring (pardon the pun, but it truly must have had its genesis here, and one can’t refrain from putting a joke back on its native heath!). We will entirely disregard the tin container because it is rarely, if ever, used in the home. In the use of glass jars the same attributes of construction, efficiency, utility and economy must be considered. There are numerous brands and variations of thes

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Sealing Tests

Sealing Tests

If, after twenty-four hours, the seal or hermetic jars can be lifted by their lids without falling from grace or from anything else, the seal is pretty sure to keep the contents in good shape. Screw-top jars can be tested by inverting in order to discover leakage. All jars should be tested and reprocessed if jars leak. Sad to say, foods in the best seal containers are often ravaged by the culinary Bolsheviki which are bacteria forming in the most airless jars. Unless all the bacteria are killed

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Density Measures

Density Measures

When there is much preserving to do, and absolute accuracy is a saver of money and time, a measure is used for determining the density of the liquids. This is called a saccharometer. It is inexpensive, about the same price as a thermometer, and consists of a long glass spindle like a thermometer with a scale on it, but, instead of mercury, the bulb is full of shot. When put in a vessel of water it rests at the bottom of the vessel and registers zero. As the density increases the spindle rises un

55 minute read

Read Chapter

Aluminum Utensils

Aluminum Utensils

Aluminum is light and enduring and contrary to allegations, cooking acids in aluminum utensils does no harm whatever. In fact, if any chemical action should take place, it does in the aluminum, and not in the food. Chemists use it to cook acids in sometimes which is a proof of the hardness of it in cooking fruit acids. If compounds were formed with aluminum, they are entirely harmless and have no more effect than any of the organic salts. Salts solutions can be cooked in aluminum, but don’t stor

59 minute read

Read Chapter

Enamel Ware

Enamel Ware

Enamel ware has a steel basis coated with porcelain. Probably no cooking utensil has so long and classic an inheritance, for enamel on metal, as jewelry, comes to us from the ancients, but it is not until modern times that this process has been used for cookery. The porcelain or enamel is so spread, hardened and annealed or tempered that it is about as elastic as the steel and therefore does not break or crack under high temperatures. But the cheaper qualities are not reliable; consequently buy

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Electric Canning and Preserving

Electric Canning and Preserving

When it comes to canning and preserving, the electrically equipped kitchen is splendidly prepared to handle this matter with the greatest ease and facility. Where there is a large electric range, it is unnecessary to have any additional canning machinery, for the sterilizing of the jars can be done right in the oven of the range. The jars may or may not be immersed in a water-bath, just as it suits the cook, without the bath is certainly easier and quicker, for the jars, when cold-packed in the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXI CASSEROLES OR THE REVOLUTION CULINARY

CHAPTER XXI CASSEROLES OR THE REVOLUTION CULINARY

“S ince my daughter came back from driving an ambulance in France and from living in the various towns, she has not only brought back an international atmosphere with her but she is quite a Kitchen Red. She has revolutionized our whole culinary system.” “You strike terror to my soul. What can you mean?” I said with amusement. “Well, since she has returned she is keen for cutting down unnecessary effort and unnecessary processes and she thinks that the French have solved the simplifying of cooker

7 minute read

Read Chapter

The Table

The Table

Chief among the furnishings of the kitchen are the table and its relatives. They have to be rigid, enduring, and must be the correct size for the job and the correct kind for the work they are meant to do. The table has been the storm center of discussion for years. The problem is this:—to find a table top that is non-absorbent, easily cleaned (not holding stains like an artist’s palette), not brittle, not cracking under changes of temperature or when utensils are dropped upon it. Courtesy of Du

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Special Tables

Special Tables

The ordinary table length is from 3′ to 7′, depending upon the size of the kitchen. There are usually from one to three tables in use,—more often two. The ordinary heights are from 32″ to 28″. Get the height that fits your workers. Be sure to find this out if possible; otherwise you will have to make a later arrangement. Maple is a satisfactory wood for strong tables; ash, and pine for the cheaper kind of top. The marble top table is the royal pastry table, which, of course, though not a luxury,

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Kitchen Cabinets

Kitchen Cabinets

A kitchen cabinet (see also Chapter XXVII , Kitchen Cabinets) is a thing of duty and joy forever. It is the first cousin to the table and really is but the table extended and expanded into drawers and shelves and closets. It signifies the demand of the modern housewife for a shipshape tool chest with all the materials ready to her hand so that there may be no reaching, stretching, or relay races around the kitchen in the preparation of the recurring daily meals. For the most part these cabinets

33 minute read

Read Chapter

Materials

Materials

Steel and wood are the materials out of which the cabinet is made. The steel ones are better in many ways than the wooden types because they are easier to clean and are more protected against vermin. However, the wooden cabinets which are built with rounded corners are a close second to the steel cabinet, since these corners cannot become a receptacle for food waste and are practically vermin proof. Wooden cabinets are finished in a hard enamel paint and can be washed with impunity. Some kitchen

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Shelving Units

Shelving Units

Steel shelving and built-in kitchen cabinets are growing more and more popular. Stationary shelves, built once and for all, can be installed, or you can begin with a few units and as you require more they can be bolted on to what you have, just like sectional bookcases. These shelves are covered with three coats of enamel baked on steel and very durable, having the same qualities as the good table:—rigidity, non-absorption, and ease in cleaning. They are the parallel of the steel filing case in

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Plate Warmer

Plate Warmer

In speaking about the above luxurious pastry and cook’s tables, we touched on the matter of plate warmers. In small homes plate warming is accomplished by ovens, oven tops, or warming plates arranged above the ovens or stove. In larger homes, however, where guests are many and often and plates and dishes multitudinous, the electric plate warmer has come to do the work. It may be under a table, as you have seen above or it may be a separate entity. The doors of the plate warmer are generally of t

58 minute read

Read Chapter

Chairs and Stools

Chairs and Stools

Since the kitchen is in no way a lounge, the chair in the kitchen is really only another tool to assist in the work or possibly to permit a few moments of relaxation. Of course, it is quite obvious that in some kitchens which are a combination sitting room, living room and dining room, the chair and even the couch are real comfort factors. However, this type of room is not being considered here. In the kind of kitchen we are furnishing the ordinary modified Windsor chair is as good a model as an

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Mats

Mats

Stone, composition, tile, and even wood floors are often very trying to the feet and back of your kitchen denizen. A strip or two of linoleum or cork is a great relief as it adds to the unrelenting floor a little elasticity and resiliency which takes the strain off the feet and makes for comfort and ease. These materials are the best, for they are washable and non-absorbent, and they add rather than detract from the beauty of the surroundings. If the strips are not usable, mats can be bought or

27 minute read

Read Chapter

Matching Up

Matching Up

It is quite as possible to have uniformity in your kitchen as well as in your other rooms. Even if the kitchen must be fixed up after the architect has done his worst, you can at least have the same color scheme throughout. There are on the market to-day kitchen furnishings to suit every pocket, so there is really little excuse for a kitchen to look heterogeneous and messy. Furnishing a kitchen is a most tempting problem, especially with not too full a purse. The trouble is mostly that people wh

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Preventives of Disease

Preventives of Disease

Paint and varnishes in the main have been thought to be beautifiers only, but in reality they are much more than this, for they are very complete means for the maintenance of sanitary conditions in the kitchen and are made for application on metals, cement, concrete, plaster, wood, etc. Therefore, there is nothing in the kitchen that cannot be re-surfaced if necessary. Cracks and holes spell vermin and germ traps, which make efficient distribution centers for disease. Here is where paints and va

52 minute read

Read Chapter

Choose the Manufacturer First

Choose the Manufacturer First

“What criterion have we,” asks the Domiologist, “in the choice of paints?” The answer is, “Choose the manufacturer, then choose the paint.” No household has a laboratory, and the widest advertised paint brands have stood the test. Consequently, a can opener, the paint, and an all-seeing eye to keep abreast of the advertisements are the requirements for the pocket laboratory. But, the standard for any paint is the overworked word “service.” If the paint you and your friends have used does not wea

42 minute read

Read Chapter

Paint Rules

Paint Rules

In buying paint it will do no harm to bear in mind: 1. That one gallon of paint should be distributable over an area (in two coats) of 300 square feet. 2. A good paint should produce a surface that is neither too hard nor too soft. Surfaces that are too hard are prone to chipping and cracking or splitting. Sometimes they remain sticky if they are too soft, or chalk or powder or flow. 3. The average life of a good application of good paint is four years. It ought to last fifteen years, but to-day

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Employ an Expert

Employ an Expert

So it can readily be seen that the painting and varnishing of the kitchen should be, if nothing else, given over to experts. The painter should understand these requirements. “The priming coat,” says Heckel, “being the one on which the adhesion of the entire paint film depends, should be most carefully considered. It should be sufficiently liquid to penetrate every pore and irregularity of the surface, carrying with it particles of the pigment; but this fluidity must not be obtained at the cost

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Enamels or Pigment Varnishes

Enamels or Pigment Varnishes

Probably nothing gives the Domiologist more delight than the effect a fine white enamel gives the objects over which it is laid. Here is a way to keep the kitchen a real blonde! There are many of these enamels on the market which give the refreshing aspect to the kitchen. Many of them have the appearance of porcelain, and can be kept clean with little trouble. They can be bought in the glossy finish or the flat or dull or mat finish. All the woodwork of the kitchen can be treated with enamels if

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Kinds of Ice-Cream

Kinds of Ice-Cream

In this sketch we will, of course, only touch upon those parts of this problem that are of interest to the housekeeper—doing her own work or with assistance. Ice creams are classified under various heads and sub-heads. Nearly every one interested classifies them differently. For the sake of convenience, we will give here one classification. I. Plain uncooked ice-cream Known as Philadelphia ice-cream, which consists of sugar, flavoring cream with or without condensed milk. 1. Plain with flavoring

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Freezing

Freezing

Apart from the recipes, with which this chapter shall not deal, the most important part about ice-cream is the freezing of the mixture. Its dangers are many. First of all, freezing incorporates air into the mixture and therefore increases its bulk. Ice-cream can be frozen too slowly or too fast, and experience here is the best teacher. If frozen too rapidly, says the Omaha State Experiment Station, the ice-cream doesn’t expand very much (this is more important to the commercial maker of ice-crea

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Cure

The Cure

First, buy a good freezer, never less than a gallon, because you can always freeze a little in it and always be ready for a crowd. There are various types of freezers on the market. (1) those that you turn by hand, (2) by motor, (3) ones that aren’t turned at all, (4) ones that are oscillated only and in which, at home, two flavors can be frozen at once. In this type it takes longer to freeze cream, but as the arm only works back and forth it is not so tiring. The can in the tub is partitioned i

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Freezing Mixture

Freezing Mixture

The greatest of all the science of ice-cream making is the mixture of ice and salt. Most cook books say three parts ice to one of salt for home use. For hardening after it is frozen eight parts of ice to one of salt, and the mixture must cover the can entirely, top and sides. Of course, the ratio of ice to salt regulates the freezing. The United States Government Bulletins are full of these ratios if you want to look up this matter. On this subject Bowen of the United States Department of Agricu

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Freezers

Freezers

Electric freezers come from about $75 up and can be had for alternate (A. C.) or direct (D. C.) current. The advantage of the freezer with its own directly-connected motor, rather than a motor which has to be connected, is readily apparent to those who have suffered the annoyance of belting, pulleys, and countershafts. Being self-contained, such an outfit may be readily located at will; to operate merely requires securing it in place and connecting the wires. You have, therefore, no belts with a

54 minute read

Read Chapter

Tubs

Tubs

The tubs should be strong and if possible bound with welded wire hoops or metal bands. If the tub is metal this is unnecessary. Tubs are made of pine, white cedar, etc. The zinc tub is a good substitute for the wooden tub, but the wooden one is good if made water tight and smooth and easy to clean. All parts of the freezer should be non-rustable, especially the can. The best cans are made with drawn-steel bottoms. They do not leak, do not fall out, as may happen with those having the tin plate o

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Buying Freezers

Buying Freezers

The same principals hold in buying freezers as any other culinary utensil. They must be seamless, smooth, easily cleaned, non-dangerous, non-corrosive, non-chipping, and be made by a reputable manufacturer. Besides the freezer must have ease in running, quick freezing, economy, convenience, and give practical results. Freezers are equipped with best standard motors. The motors should be so placed as to eliminate danger of motors burning out or being injured by careless handling of the ice and sa

54 minute read

Read Chapter

Electric Rotaries

Electric Rotaries

To begin with, these fairy-like machines are somewhat like and unlike patent medicine advertisements—alike because they claim to do many things and unlike because they can and do fulfill their claims! For example, they beat eggs, mix bread dough, mayonnaise; stir cake batter, frostings, dressings; whip cream; mash potatoes; grind nuts, spices and meat; drive (some) ice-cream freezers; turn the food chopper; have grinding and buffing wheels for sharpening cutlery and polishing silver. In fact, th

23 minute read

Read Chapter

Housewives Bad Mixers

Housewives Bad Mixers

This will especially appeal to the housewife mayonnaisly—because many a good mixture has been wasted by inefficient mixings by the mixer being called away suddenly, etc. Then, too, many a mayonnaise is never born at all because the housewife or the cook “hasn’t the time to-day.” Where the mixer is electrically driven, time is added unto the menage and while the mayonnaise is forming the cook is per forming elsewhere. Egg beating, cream whipping, batter beating, all these take time. Now with the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The New Machines

The New Machines

Among the best machines is one so made as to effectively chop food and meat, grind coffee, slice vegetables and fruit, etc., etc.; has with its attachments a hot-water and ice container to be used as a “bath,” if stirring must needs be done in a cold or hot medium; soup strainer and colander connection; ice-cream freezer attachment; a meat slicer (a great comfort and saving of meat). This motor has three speeds. Courtesy of Troy Metal Products Co. A MEMBER OF THE KITCHEN ROTARY CLUB AT WORK ON C

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Smaller Craft

Smaller Craft

If you don’t want a machine that can do so much, there is one on the market electrically driven, which beats eggs, mixes mayonnaise, angel cake and light batter, mashes potatoes and fluffs them if mixed with butter and cream, mixes custard, soufflés, etc. It has a small 1 ⁄ 2 H. P. motor of fine construction designed for 110 voltage. It is necessary in this case to state whether your current is direct or alternating (DC or AC). This motor can run on either direct or alternating if the speed cont

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Time and the Mixer

Time and the Mixer

1000 revolutions is all you can effect in a minute, no matter how “Red” you may be. This machine turns 2000 revolutions, outrushing the Russians and all Central Europe!...

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Evolutions

Some Evolutions

In from one to five and ten minutes can eggs, frostings, and mayonnaise be accomplished! Full speed for heavy mixtures, half speed for lighter, a gram of cream can be had in less than five minutes. A gallon of oil in relation to a mayonnaise dressing took but ten minutes to be used up. Now can you beat it? Hasn’t this phrase lost its slangy significance? This little angel weighs but 2 3 ⁄ 4 pounds, and its lightness is one of its charms....

25 minute read

Read Chapter

Requirements

Requirements

All these machines should be easily attached to wall or lighting sockets or outlets. (Electric). They must be easily cleaned. The motor must be protected from you and food stuffs and you must be protected from it. All attachments must attach easily. When easily is used it is meant to the limit of ease. All parts must fit, so that the doing of a new operation is not accompanied with dread. It must be a pleasure to depart from coffee grinding to turning the ice-cream pail and polishing silver. Now

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Floor Requirements

Floor Requirements

Of course, you realize that every kitchen flooring should, as nearly as possible, be:— Attractive, Easy to keep clean, Noiseless, Odorless, Vermin and dust proof, Comfortable to feet and back, Non-slippery whether dry or wet, Durable (no upkeep but washing and polishing), Fire proof or fire retardent, Impervious to changes in temperature, Laid over any kind of floor base, Lightweight enough to be suitable to any structure, Seamless or joined so as to be virtually seamless, Non-warping, non-expan

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Laying the Floor

Laying the Floor

The wooden floor must be carefully laid or else the cracks become traps for germs and dust. Of course, this applies to all flooring. And while on the subject of laying floors, let me say that even though you order the best kind of flooring in the world, if it is laid badly, you might as well have bought the worst sort of material. It is imperative that you have the manufacturer or the manufacturer’s delegated dealer lay your floor. Don’t go to your village builder or carpet man. It won’t pay; in

40 minute read

Read Chapter

The Linoleum Family

The Linoleum Family

Among the best known floorings for kitchen use is linoleum. It is so well known and so popular that purchasers in their ignorance often accept, unwittingly, substitutes and lay felt paper instead of the real thing! If you decide to buy linoleum, go to the best maker or his dealer. Follow their gospel Buy the Best . If you heed this you make an investment. If you do not, you make an expenditure. So when you decide to buy linoleum first look on the wrong side of it, and if it has burlap on the bac

3 minute read

Read Chapter

The Cork Family

The Cork Family

Another attractive, useful and popular flooring is what is called the corks. It is made of clean cork shavings compressed in closed steel molds about an inch thick for five hours under high pressure and high temperature. All the moisture is thus driven out and it is pressed together into a waterproof mass. No foreign substance is introduced to bind it together as this is done by its own gums. Inferior cork tile is mixed with foreign substances and this often makes it break down and detracts from

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Compositions

Compositions

The floorings of composition, cements and mineral mixtures are innumerable. Some are excellent, embodying nearly all the good points enumerated in this latter. They are a little warmer than tile and not quite so expensive. They have probably a little more foot comfort but not much more. They are fire proof, do not weigh too much for a lightly constructed house, and are kept clean with the usual elbow grease and water. These floors for the most part are made in various colors and designs. In tile

49 minute read

Read Chapter

Linotile

Linotile

A newer kind of floor is a cross between a cement and a linoleum. It wears indefinitely and can be highly recommended, as handsome as it comes in tile form, and silent, easily kept clean, resilient and all the good points of cement as well as linoleum. F ancy a carpenter with his tools all over the room! Fancy a painter with one color here and another color there! Do you think we would have had a Michelangelo if he had been forced to get down from the scaffold every minute for a tool or a bit of

7 minute read

Read Chapter

The Essentials of the Cabinet

The Essentials of the Cabinet

The cabinet must be able to fulfill these conditions: It must be easily moved if on castors, it must be easily taken apart, drawers must run smoothly, racks to hold things must hold things, they must hold enough things, too, to prevent relay kitchen races. The wood cabinets are excellent, the steel we think a degree more self-protecting because they cannot absorb odors, or get vermin investitures. However, the best grades of wood cabinets are so perfect that we can endorse them ungrudgingly. The

2 minute read

Read Chapter

The Argument for Hanging

The Argument for Hanging

I have written the above in the past tense—but it is really existent to-day in the majority of homes. “Why,” I asked a splendid housekeeper, “don’t you seal up those dark receptacles and hang up your utensils?” “Gracious,” said she, “if I hang them up they’d get all dusty and it wouldn’t be sanitary. Ridiculous,” quoth she! “But, my dear friend, do you think those dark closets are dust-proof and do you think darkness is a germ killer?” The truth is these closets, away from light, are almost omin

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Good Tools, Good Treatment

Good Tools, Good Treatment

No!—No one could. Because no tools will last under such treatment and good tools are worth keeping—and the very best are reduced to nothingness if not kept well. It’s a case, pure and simple, of noblesse oblige. There is a good housekeeping reason, too, for things to be hung up, and this is: when things are in plain sight they become a constant curse to the cook or to the beholder if they are not scrupulously clean. In the kitchen of “suspended animation” you are pretty sure to have clean and sp

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Hanging Within Reach

Hanging Within Reach

To be sure, this does not mean to hang up the kitchen table or the stove, but it does mean to keep things, that are used hundreds of times every day, within the reach of your hands without superfluous stooping and bending. It means, too, that cleaning utensils, such as brooms and dusters and rags, if hung in separate racks in or outside of a closet, will live longer in good condition than if hurled into a corner of a closet where they get smashed and have their one hundred per cent. utility dimi

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Fiber or Bristle

Fiber or Bristle

When you buy a brush, if you don’t know a fiber from a bristle, ask your dealer. He may say: “No this is not bristle, it is made of Bass” (or Bassine, Kitool, Palmyra or Palmetto or Rice Root, or Mixed Fibers, or Union, or Union Marble, etc.). If he is a good dealer you need not fear, if his price is not very low you need not be suspicious, because no good brush is inexpensive to-day and no cheap brush is a saving. Of all the fibers Tampico (from Mexico, Central America largely), the product of

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Brushes Must Brush Only

Brushes Must Brush Only

Brushes, like any other implement, should do their own jobs only and nothing else. A brush that gouges and does a chisel’s work is a poor brush, no matter what quality the fiber or brush mark. The brush you buy for your wall or your hardwood floor must not scratch, and must have nothing in its construction that can scratch. Likewise, the brush you buy for your toilet bowl must not scratch or wear the enamel and the bristles must be bristles, for if of fiber you will have your brush acting like a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Protean Vegetable Brush

The Protean Vegetable Brush

One of the most useful brushes on the market is the vegetable brush. A little brush whose uses are many. If there are a few in a household they can be used for washing vegetables, scraping silk from corn, scrubbing poultry, scouring pots and pans, cleaning white shoes, sprinkling clothes, for they hold enough water, and scrubbing dishes. For the kitchenette to-day the sink brush and dishwashing brush with their long handles are a boon for the housewife as she can keep her hands in condition by n

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Mops and Dusters

Mops and Dusters

Just a word or two about mops, which are more and more coming to be made of cotton which, though not technically absorbent cotton, does absorb the dust. They are not oily, but chemically treated and so will not hurt the rugs. They should be of wire construction, no parts exposed so as to scratch. They must be of strong, enduring cotton, reversible, washable, with an adjustable long handle, usable for ceiling, walls, doors, windows, pictures, baseboards and floors; good for corners. The handle sh

2 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXX THE QUIET HOUSE

CHAPTER XXX THE QUIET HOUSE

T he entrance to a house is like the tonic chord of a sonata. It gives you the key, the introduction to the atmosphere of the home. You really get an impression of a home immediately upon entering the hallway. It is also true that on entering a house you are lured or repelled by the sounds in it, whether from the house itself or the people living there. If you are greeted by loud voices, slamming doors, creaking stairs, there is immediately the impression that this particular home is not well or

11 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Details

Some Details

The corners in the metal (and in the wood frame as well) have to be of exquisite workmanship. The best types have no screws or rivets or plates or projections of any sort, yet are of a perfect interlocking or welded construction and hold the screen cloth at every point with infallible tenacity. There is no aperture so shaped that it cannot be framed in screens by the ablest screen makers. In the case of the metal screen the bent work is really a work of art, in that they are not puckered or pinc

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Varieties of Metal Screens

Varieties of Metal Screens

The type of screen is of course dependent upon the kind of window or opening you have to screen. The usual types are: sliding and rolling, casement and stationery. The sliding screens are usually used on the double hung window and slide on a slide. The best slides are of metal backed by wood. A double hung window can be screened by a single screen or a double one, dependent on the wish of the purchaser. The double slide is necessary, of course, in the case of the double screen. In this connectio

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Rolling Screens

Rolling Screens

The acme of screen perfection is attained in the rolling screen. At present this type is creating the interest it deserves, as it is adapted to every kind of window and can be kept on the window throughout the year. The screen is of metal and rolls up on a roller like a window shade; it is of simple construction, durable and non-rusting. It is light and rolls with great despatch. Some of these shadelike frames can be raised and lowered at any point on the window frame; they are rigid, do not sag

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Wooden Frames

Wooden Frames

The story of the wooden frame is about the same as the metal, only that the wood frame can’t rust, but can wear out if not seasoned and kiln dried and given all the care in manufacture that long life in woods necessitates. Here, too, the corner construction must be perfect, must be able to bear the weight of the screen and take out the jars. The frame must be rigid, light and strong. The wire cloth must be so fastened at every point that there is no sag or bagginess in the broadest window. Now a

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Wire Cloth Varieties

Wire Cloth Varieties

There is also choice here. You can have: 1. Painted steel cloth which must be repainted often in accordance with its exposure and in regard to where it is exposed and whether it is hung inside or outside of the window. 2. Galvanized steel mesh: This is often blackened for eye ease. 3. Monel metal (an alloy of copper and nickel) guaranteed rust proof, used mainly at seashore resorts but good for any place. 4. Bronze and patented bronzes: Used as is the monel wire cloth. Here a coat of paint to du

1 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XXXII POLISHING THE WATER SUPPLY

CHAPTER XXXII POLISHING THE WATER SUPPLY

“I found a fish in my bath-tub to-day,” said I to a friend. “Wasn’t that the best place in the house to find one?” was the reply. “Yes,” I said, “but I can’t say I enjoy bathing in an aquarium, and my civic pride is hurt because I have been so proud of my city’s water quality and all of the sister municipalities which filter or chlorinate or both.” In this anecdote is the crux of the filter situation. In times gone by a filter was sold to save life from polluted waters, from streams, wells, surf

13 minute read

Read Chapter

Things They Obviate

Things They Obviate

Do you care to heat the great outdoors? This is the first important question. If you do, how dare you with the shortage of coal to-day? Have you sufficient coal to waste it? Is your home hard to heat? Why? Do you like the gales and little hurricanes racing over your floors, chasing the little snow flakes? Do you like to cultivate colds and other draught diseases? These are pertinent questions even if they seem impertinent. They suggest the graphic pictures that we do not want inhabiting our home

44 minute read

Read Chapter

What They Are

What They Are

In the past when the telephone had just become a household staple and before horse cars evaporated you used to paste the weather strips on the outside of your windows. Then they were made of cloth, or rubber or heavy paper, and they made life slightly fair and warmer; but most of the heat accrued by them was that which was fired in trying to raise the windows which stuck due to the adherence of the weather strip. To-day the weather strip is gentler and not only keeps the cold air at bay, but kee

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Sliding Window

The Sliding Window

The sliding window is the most general type to be treated. Here the top and bottom, sides and meeting rail must be considered. How to stop leakage and seal against unwelcome callers are the problems. At the top of the window, as in the illustration , two strips are used; the tubular protuberance in the head of the frame nestles cosily in the depressed concavity of the window sash. Some brands line the depression with metal—others do not. When the window is closed, there is a complementary interl

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Other Cases

Other Cases

The casement window has its peculiarities of treatment, as have doors and windows which open in the center. In the casement which opens in, for example, a brass triangle is provided with “weep holes” to drain out any water which may accumulate on the sill and follow through into the room. The meeting rail is sealed in a way approximately as in the sliding window. The sill strip is peculiarly shaped to spring into its sealing power; sometimes it is called a Z-shaped plate, each manufacturer havin

26 minute read

Read Chapter

Doors

Doors

The door sills are made with metal, and metal strips forming a sealed joint against warping, settling air, etc. There is a very nice device used to prevent the cold air let into the bedroom at night from escaping into the halls and cooling them off. On the lower edge of the door is fitted a spring which when the door is closed by contact with the hinged side of the frame releases a felted pad which fits tightly against the sill of the door. This makes one’s winter immersions a pleasure, for the

31 minute read

Read Chapter

Application

Application

Weather strips can be applied after as well as when the house is built. “My house is so well built,” said a friend of mine, “that it does not need weather stripping.” If that could have been so, it was a unique house. There is hardly a house where the wood around the doors and the windows does not warp or shrink or do something equally obnoxious. Whether seasoned by long processes of actual weathering or rapidly kiln dried, wood in captivity becomes restless, and seems to strain and struggle in

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Purchasing

Purchasing

Remember the weather stripping that you buy should last as long as the life of your house. For this reason the all metal kind is the best to buy. The metal and cloth are efficient as long as they last, and so are other combinations; but they do not last long enough. You must get a longevity insurance. They must be made of non-rusting, non-corroding materials such as bronze, copper, zinc or brass manufactured to a high degree of dependability, and subjected to the most rigid inspection and tests

3 minute read

Read Chapter

For Wind, Dust and Noise

For Wind, Dust and Noise

The weather strip is the solution of the gale exposed home, of the noise, dust and weather exposed home, of any home with windows at all. It is not subject to depreciation but increases in value, and as the house depreciates the weather stripping takes on the burdens of the ever increasing depreciation and prevents any more rapid fuel consumption, keeps down the dust infiltrations and lessens the cleaning bills. If, by chance, the woodwork is still obstreperous the defect can always be corrected

49 minute read

Read Chapter

Quiet and Cleanliness

Quiet and Cleanliness

The charm of the house is quiet. Don’t you unconsciously gage the dignity of the homes that you visit by the quiet of them? The weather strip keeps much of the street noises out. It dulls and reduces the raucousness of the clang and clatter. Every housewife knows that the hangings next to the windows get very dirty. She also knows that the room gets full of dust whether the windows are closed or not. A certain amount of dust will get into the room no matter what precautions are taken, but there

1 minute read

Read Chapter

A French Bath

A French Bath

A few years ago no one would have thought of having wood panels in the bathroom—we proudly felt that we had gone beyond that stage. Yet to-day in the elaborate combined dressing-bathrooms we find white wood panels giving a feeling of warmth, together with almost as rich an effect as when marble itself is used. The French bathroom in one great house is as carefully designed as any room in the house, even more so, for there both utility and beauty are achieved together. Take, for example, the clos

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Equipment

The Equipment

An interesting development, too, is the shape of the bathroom—the departure from the rectangular. Sometimes it is octagonal, with a radiating tiled floor and the various functioning fixtures in the far sectors. One room which we have investigated has in one corner a sunken marble tub and in the center the radiator. The gold work in this room is beautiful, but practical, of a design that takes plumbing into the arts. The thoroughly equipped woman’s bathroom must have the usual tub, showers, lavat

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Bathtub

The Bathtub

The most interesting fixture in the bathroom, to Americans and Britons, at least, is the bathtub. Aside from the kitchen stove, this is the nucleus about which our content is generated. Civilization has been kind enough to leave us two generally used types of bathtubs—the solid porcelain and the enamel over iron (enamel lined or porcelain over iron) tub. The tin tub has gone out, the glass tub is too perilous, and the porcelain or porcelain lined proves about the most satisfactory when we can’t

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Valves

Valves

There are myriads of styles of faucets, vents and outlets used to-day in tubs. It was at first thought advisable to have the inlet as near the floor of the tub as possible in order to make the pour of the water practically soundless after the first inch or two came in. This is about the only advantage of this arrangement. It is far better to have the inlet higher up, either on top of the wall of the tub, or even in the wall above the tub. If it is in the wall of the room it is impossible to hit

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Shower Bath

The Shower Bath

Nearly every modern bath has a shower of some description. The difficulty with the shower is the splashiness of it. The first protective device was a cloth on a bracket. This is still used to a great extent, but the ideal arrangement is to have the shower in a closet designed for it, opening into the room. This closet may be of glass, marble, or tile, with a cloth curtain or a door to match the material of which the section is built. The door should be as small as possible. Twenty inches is quit

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Mixing the Water

Mixing the Water

There are various propositions on the market to mix the water in the shower so that it can not scald the bather. One manufacturer offers a little toe pipe, with which to test the temperature of the water before starting the bath. These things are more or less desirable and dependable but are not at all necessary. It is best to have the valves at the entrance as you walk into the shower, so that your arm may not be under the flow when it begins. If the piping is well done and the valves work, the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Lavatories and Tables

Lavatories and Tables

The styles of these are legion. The sizes are so well standardized that unless one wants them made according to some bizarre pattern it is not necessary to give dimensions. The usual length is about 33″. This is ample and graceful. The 54″ takes more space than most bathrooms can give up to the lavatory, and makes quite unnecessary bulk. The 33″ lavatory—and any smaller size—can be made of vitrified china, which is handsomer and less absorbent than the solid porcelain lavatory. The vitrified chi

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Faucets

Faucets

The faucets on tubs, lavatories, bidet, shower, etc., require a great deal of care, since they must be cleaned so often. Various materials have been used, such as cut glass, porcelain and nickel, porcelain-like enamel, brass, silver, gold, etc. For a very rich room, gold and cut glass, or the gold alone is beautiful. But for most rooms the porcelain and nickel faucets are the very best and demand the least care. All-white enamel is not durable and is hard to take care of properly. It is very muc

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Closet

The Closet

The syphon type is, of course, the best obtainable. Many closets are sold especially from catalog and by mail, as absolutely silent. Never, if you can help it, buy anything of this sort from a photograph. No closet can be absolutely silent. If there is any flow at all, complete silence would be impossible. A minimum of noise is the best that can be achieved, and the best makers have closets of this sort. The bowls are generally of porcelain, and the best ones are of vitrified china (really porce

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Incidental Fittings

Incidental Fittings

Chairs and stools are usually in white enamel or in fancy rooms are made to match the general style which prevails in the decoration. The question of closets in the bathroom is entirely dependent upon individual taste. You can have the wall and mirror finished type, or the long door regular closet, or a combination of these, with or without full length mirror. In some rooms a glass shelved linen closet is found to be a real convenience. The soap racks, etc., have lately become recessed in walls.

3 minute read

Read Chapter

The Heating Engineer

The Heating Engineer

There is such an “animal” as the heating engineer. He it is who can tell you to an iota how much heating surface you have in your home to be heated. He it is who can subtract and add footage and finally tell you whether you must heat 4400 feet or 3000 feet. When you know this, of course, you can more readily order the boiler which is best adapted to heat such a surface. For example, suppose you had a conservatory in one end of a large room—your heating engineer could tell you—due to the glass su

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Principal of Heating

Principal of Heating

Steam heat is, of course, heating by means of circulating steam through pipes to radiators. This is affected by a one pipe system sometimes, or a two pipe. The steam ascending from the boiler in one pipe and condensing into water falls back into boiler in same pipe. In the two system arrangement the steam ascends in one and returns in the other. The one pipe system, of course, is cheaper but takes skill in setting, as the pitch of it (the angle) must be perfection. In the radiators the steam con

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Boiler Purchase

Boiler Purchase

1. Swiftly speaking—the boiler must make every pound of coal do its best, it should respond rapidly to climatic changes, it must be easily fueled, shaken, regulated, cleaned, free from repairs, rust, leaks water heat or gas and it must be easily set up in room for its use. (All good boiler makers send you “coal information.”) Economy in fuel and labor. Save coal yes? But economy in coal means getting out of every pound the maximum. So when you buy coal ask what its fuel value is? It ought to be

5 minute read

Read Chapter

Piping

Piping

The piping from boilers to radiators has to be done carefully. The best steam fitter is none too good. The grade or pitch of the pipes etc., the area of surface, the diameter et al must be adapted to area to be heated and to the system employed—all of course, is too technical for your needs here. Only you must require care to be used here and let your contractor know you’re “on.”...

20 minute read

Read Chapter

The Gas Boiler

The Gas Boiler

In this boiler you get maximum comfort and maximum heat. No coal, no ashes, no bother, little cash. But this must be from the best makers. It is usually more costly to operate—but—!...

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Water Backs

Water Backs

Boiler makers in outstanding manufacturers make excellent water heaters in which water for laundry etc. is heated by heat which would otherwise be unused....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Radiators

Radiators

Radiators are the translators! They are like the English writers who translate the Russian novel. The radiator alone tells us whether our hot water in the boiler is being translated into heat for our comfort. They are either curses or benefits! But they are usually the eye-sore of the home. In short they are a series of tubing which present a maximum of heat radiator surface. They have valves, for controlling the heat. If you buy the right valves, your radiators will not leak, water-hammer or ba

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Air Vent (Steam heating)

Air Vent (Steam heating)

The air vent on each main, allows the air to escape so that the heat arrives more rapidly to radiator. This of course, saves fuel....

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Heat Controls

Heat Controls

To take the heating of your home out of the area of dreams and out of the expensive realm of “feeling,” some sort of heat regulating device is recommended. It is foolish to say “Do you think it is warm enough?” to a group in the room. For no two will think alike! Apart from this, the perfect thermostat not only tells you at what temperature is your house, not only keeps the house evenly heated, but in doing this saves you fuel, expense, illness and what not. By simple mechanical means the thermo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Bungalow Owner

The Bungalow Owner

There is now on the market a hot water boiler which is compact and good-looking which if put into a cellarless house heats it with the efficiency of the subterranean boiler! This is done through pipes and radiators and with a maximum comfort and a minimum care....

13 minute read

Read Chapter

Heat’s Influence

Heat’s Influence

It is usable in schools, cottages, etc., and bids well to civilize sections of the world which have starved for heat and consequently have been stunted in physical and mental growth. This boiler is the Ford of boilers, giving unto every man the right to be comfortable wherever he lives!...

14 minute read

Read Chapter

Heating with Oil

Heating with Oil

Oil heaters for special rooms are made by the principal oilstove makers. These give good results but of course are not comparable to hot water heating, steam etc., plants....

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Electric Heating

Electric Heating

As yet heating a house by electricity is too expensive and isn’t done except by small comforting heaters which heat one room at a time. These are very clean and efficient and not expensive....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Hot Water Heating

Hot Water Heating

The problem of heating water is of serious dimensions for life without hot water to civilized man and woman is a poor struggle. At present there are on the market, distinct from the usual hot water plant installed in properly built and equipped houses—many different and efficient heaters and boilers. In houses where there is no hot water central plant there can be bought for moderate rates an electric heater which is attached to the faucet in tub or wash basin or sink and through its system of c

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Gas

Gas

The gas heater up to date has been most reliable and efficient. There are many good gas heaters too on the market, which when you turn on the water start the fire! These are rapid and have given very good results. There are many “boiler” heated water schemes—the water backs on gas and coal stoves etc. Then too a very efficient method is using the heat (over) not used in the sectional boiler for heating the house. This is effectively used in auxiliary boilers for heating hot water. Some firms are

58 minute read

Read Chapter

Lighting

Lighting

Good lighting can mean good health. Eye strain is often the cause of depleted systems, indigestion and things that lead to other calamities. Many a doctor would better analyze a home to see what could afflict the sufferer than analyze the patient! Flickering lights strain the eye, because it cannot adapt itself to the rapid variations in intensity. So the flickering light must go. Lights that are too bright hurt the eye, lights that are dim cause strain, all in turn having disastrous effect on s

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Height of Lights

Height of Lights

Lights should be high enough only to cast a direct light on the subject in hand. The reading lamp must help the reader, not impede him. Try over and over again until it is placed correctly. The shade should be such that it not only directs and diffuses the light, but softens and subdues and makes it a pleasant thing to the eye. Very often dim lights can be magnified by a reflector. Never, though, can a reflector actually increase the light, that is to say, the reflector doesn’t increase the elec

30 minute read

Read Chapter

Reflection

Reflection

You are probably aware that certain colors absorb or reflect in varying degrees. Usually in the papering of rooms no account is taken at all of this perfectly honest color vagary. Consequently, a dark room is often somberly decked in deep chocolate paper and therefore you get something like 4% reflection whereas in that room white would reflect about 70% and a wall yellow painted would reflect about 62%, thereby saving the necessity of just that much more lighting. Green reflects about 18%, blue

42 minute read

Read Chapter

Light Measurements

Light Measurements

The foot candle is the unit of light measurement. A standard candle has been decided upon and all lighting calculated on this basis. We say we have 16 candle power lamp that it means it gives light of 16 of these standard candles. From a 60 watt lamp the candle power obtained from a tungsten is 56 candle power. A saving in money is had if the tungsten though more expensive is used....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

Cost of Light, Electric

Cost of Light, Electric

The amount of electricity taken by a lamp is measured in watts— Watts ÷ 1000 equals Kilowatts Kilowatts × hours equals Kilowatt hours Kilowatt hours × rate equals cost. (See Chapter I on Electricity.) Economy is quite possible here as in burning oil or any thing else. If your lights are well placed, you need less light, if they have not too absorbent globes you will also need to use less light, if you have proper wall tints, etc. You often need fewer lamps. One good lamp in the right place saves

38 minute read

Read Chapter

The Incandescent Light

The Incandescent Light

That brings us to the story of the incandescent lamp— Incandescent means to glow with heat—In short the incandescent light is one which employs a globe in which the air has been exhausted and in which a vacuum exists. Before the air has been exhausted a filament of metal has been affixed through which the current of electricity is passed. In the resistance of this current the filament glows and gives the light that you use. Don’t take any lamp you can get. Ask for the number of candle power or w

30 minute read

Read Chapter

Indirect and Direct Lighting

Indirect and Direct Lighting

Of course there is a loss every time the light is reflected through a diffusing medium. In correct direct lighting most of the light is only reflected once before using point. In indirect lighting it has one more reflection (at ceiling) causing a loss hardly much less than 25% and maybe more. The diffusing bowls throw a large part of the light—in semi-direct lighting—where there is a similar loss and the part of the light which goes through the bowl is considerably reduced by absorption. Natural

56 minute read

Read Chapter

Special Room Service

Special Room Service

In lighting rooms remember their special needs. It is very unpleasant to have a light unshielded by a shade of some sort as the eye rebels against the sharp concentration of light....

9 minute read

Read Chapter

Dining Room Domes

Dining Room Domes

Dining room domes are like mountains of flowers—obstruct the view and make you hurdle to see a diner opposite to you. They should be hung high enough not to become obstructive to the view and low enough not to throw light in your eyes. If this can’t be done, hang it high rather than low and cover the opening of the dome with a material somewhat alike in color to the dome....

20 minute read

Read Chapter

The Bedroom

The Bedroom

Have your fixtures on the side walls and plenty of them. Yet in some bedrooms, there are often three lights used when one properly placed would be enough! Think of the money outlay! A few outlets in convenient places will make it easy to use the vibrator, electric pad, shaving stand etc....

14 minute read

Read Chapter

The Kitchen and Closets

The Kitchen and Closets

Over the sink if necessary a small light can be placed. All dark closets should have an electric light; which can be switched on from the outside of the closet. It is a real sanitary measure to say nothing else of the ancient blind groping in a dark cupboard for these things—which roll and break in the groping! Blind sport—Electric lights in all closets are not luxuries now they are nervous prostration preventives! Light is a detective. Nothing bad can survive in the light! Dirt is revealed, bad

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Architects

Architects

Don’t leave your lighting to your architects. Illuminating engineers are good but you can even be more illuminating by knowing your own needs and habits. There is no excuse with electricity in not having your lights where you want them. Buy the right lights to save your health and eyes. Talk to your contractor before the house is “let” for building. Here is the time to talk outlets!...

19 minute read

Read Chapter

In Finale

In Finale

1. Clean globes mean more light. Don’t think you don’t have to clean electric lights. You waste money on electricity with every grain of dust on your globes. 2. Tired eyes often mean too few lights or light placed in wrong places. 3. Remember don’t always blame cook or work for indigestion, it may be your eyes from bad lighting. 4. A bare lamp if it must be used should be above the eye line, always use a shade. 5. Too much is as bad as too little; both strain the eye. 6. In low ceilinged r

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Suggested Novelties

Some Suggested Novelties

There is a “cute” little thing now to be had to prevent you bumping your shins on a table when leaving the room—a light that when you put it out stays lit one minute after you pull the chain!...

11 minute read

Read Chapter

Cord Divider

Cord Divider

There is also a device which connects the long electric cord so that you can easily lengthen or shorten it without calling in an electrician....

7 minute read

Read Chapter

Tinting

Tinting

Lacquers for globes can be bought whereby you can reduce the glare of the ordinary lamp at will or even color them to suit....

6 minute read

Read Chapter

Principles

Principles

First principle is that diffusion of light is necessary in order to see the object clearly and pleasantly. (2) Brightness is to be avoided. No general rule can be given for number of foot candles—different rooms—whether dark or light in decoration—need different treatment. Experiment and experience are the only arbiters here. Some rules: (1) Avoid flickering light —fatigue and nerves result from flickers. (2) Use shaded lamps. More diffused light from a large source gives better light than from

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Cleaning

Cleaning

Put tin to be cleaned in hot soda, never more than 5 minutes because the tin will dissolve somewhat, as the heat and soda meet and though it will disintegrate the grease it will make the iron or steel base show through. But with more fine powder like whiting, rinse hot, and dry while hot. Tin will rust so it is best to dry while “the tin is hot!”...

19 minute read

Read Chapter

Japan

Japan

Among the most useful and jaunty things in tin is the so-called Japan wear which is but painted tin. Bread and cake boxes in different colors, with and without shelves, sliding doors and in varying fasteners to suit your fancy. These are light and easier to manage than the shiny metallic ones and easier to clean out than the wooden ones....

17 minute read

Read Chapter

Cake Cutters

Cake Cutters

There is no reason either why you cannot use the less expensive tin cake cutters in their multitudinous designs. They are keen cutting and light and very durable....

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Galvanized

Galvanized

Galvanized wear—is usually steel heated to a special finish of tin. Some of the things in this material are most useful and necessary—for example, the refrigerator drain pan, garbage pail and ash can. These are extra heavy and withstand wear and jouncing. For the less elaborate kitchen, the tin muffin pans, funnels and pie plates are useful yet not as good as other kitchen wear such as the Aluminum and Enamels....

19 minute read

Read Chapter

Necessities Not Known

Necessities Not Known

The ideal Christmas tree holder which keeps the tree fresh for months on account of its simple reservoir for water is really something well worth knowing about. It holds the tree very steady and is japanned in a dull green. For country or suburban homes the out-door incinerator, a perforated tinned container, permits the burning of rubbish without danger from blowing cinders; of course, this is not meant to burn fats and animal refuse. An incinerator (see Chapter XIII ) of another order is neces

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Ice-Cream Freezers

Ice-Cream Freezers

There are two or three very interesting and effective ice cream freezers made of tin. There is one in fact so built as to need no turning....

8 minute read

Read Chapter

Trays

Trays

Tin trays are invaluable as they come in all sizes and are exceedingly light. They come plain, japanned and some decorated—but any one with a sense of paint and form can make an ordinary tin tray a thing of joy—while for the most part the tin ware houses execrably decorate the trays! A word to the wise!...

15 minute read

Read Chapter

Rubber

Rubber

The rubber wear that is used in kitchens is not extensive but what is used is indispensable. For preserving, of course, the rubber ring to tightly close certain jars is a necessity and the best is none too good to buy. Unless you have the best here you are cheated by breakage. Rubber gloves for kitchenette and kitchen use save and prevent breakage, they also prevent the sink becoming “holey.” For “holey” sinks are horrible to contemplate! Some people like perforated rubber mats on linoleum or ti

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Paper

Paper

The uses of paper in the home are not so many. Shelving in the pantry or kitchen can be kept in renewed health with paper, laces of course. The bungalow, or motor trip or picnic can be well supplied with paper and fiber plates. Rather would we warn you against paper uses! such as wrapping up your ice to preserve it, to spoil food, wrapping up your food stuffs in paper in refrigerator, greasing muffin pan with paper for which you should use a brush. Sometimes, however, a piece of paper will clean

51 minute read

Read Chapter

Chop Papers

Chop Papers

Paper “golf stockings” for chop bones, poultry legs etc. are decorative....

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Charlotte Russe

Charlotte Russe

Vegetables and charlotte russe are often, too, served in the paper cup. Which, by the way reminds me that in large kitchens the paper cup is indispensable. In this place it would be well to say that a pad—a writing pad—should be in every kitchen for multitudinous listings and memos. No kitchen is a perfect one that isn’t “padded.” In fact it is a sell if it isn’t! I f I were a cook (of course, being a democrat, I aspire to no such plutocratic eminence, but were I a cook), I should want to have f

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Small Equipment

The Small Equipment

The cream bag, with all the alluring little tubes for making fascinating designs on the birthday or Christmas cake, saves the cook time in rigging up paper tubes for spreading cream and sugar. If it were only to obviate the unpatriotic cry against our thick bread in comparison to the British gossamer slice, it would ease one’s life to have some one of the bread slicers on the American market which cost very little. (About $4. [1] ) [1] All prices here are merely approximate. By the time this boo

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Scales and Sharpeners

Scales and Sharpeners

Kitchen scales, good ones, are really indispensable to the careful housekeeper. The balance type is the most accurate and costs from $8 up. Very often you can test your purchases and if under weight you can scold the grocer (what fun!) and if over weight—but what’s the good of dream stuff here? The hanging spring scale is accurate and costs from $2.50 up. (See Chapter XL on Measures.) “Oh, for a sharp knife!” A feminine and hopeless cry often ... but the carborundum knife sharpener (30 to 50 cen

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Table Bells and Griddles

Table Bells and Griddles

Table bells of sweet tintinabulation save the nerves. At any rate there is poetry in such a gift, and one can spend from $1.50 to any price at all on these romantic things, as they also come in the precious metals. There may be many domiologists with doubts about cake, bread and mayonnaise mixers, but if you ever gave any of these articles to a household, you would go down into history as a benefactor. I wonder often why so many of us forget that such gifts are really gold mines. No one likes to

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Electric Dishwashers and Stoves

Electric Dishwashers and Stoves

If there be a regent and not a cook in your kitchen, she will welcome with tired arms the electric dishwasher, the boon to the woman doing her own work. It costs about $150. or thereabouts and makes housework a game rather than drudgery. Haven’t you often heard the young wife say: “I wouldn’t mind house work at all if it weren’t for the dishwashing.” Then there is the magic—yes, magic—electric stove family! There isn’t time enough left to tell of some of their wonder workings. If you gave one of

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Electrified Tables

Electrified Tables

Furniture is furniture. That seems rational—it has beauty but not life. Yet in the Middle Edison Period in which we live, furniture arterially supplied with electric current has come to pass. Table tipping has gone out, but electrified tea tables have come in. There is no limit to what the electrified tea table might not be, or might not contain. Tea, toast, lectures or music fill its usual shallow depths. But now a veritable companion to man—not only a pal but an advisor. Yet you must be carefu

53 minute read

Read Chapter

Sleeping Accomodations

Sleeping Accomodations

Gunpowder can be made out of the air, but that isn’t what we are looking for—after all it’s a constructive use we give it—breathing and health. Of late, people are longing for health—see the new religious sects. So the home longs for it, and devices are continually being made to give the home more air and better. An automatic device to make rooms breathe is now a practical thing. It looks like a little box of copper wire on one side, open on the other and fitted with little shutters so that the

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Square Measure

Square Measure

These are the classics over which we of the ancient régime trembled but which, in the new régime, youth imbibes in unwitting doses and grows in spite of itself into engineers and surveyors! Yet for you and me there are still tables that may be of use and L. Ray Balderston in her Housewifery has published one which is worthy of quoting:— But what of all this if we use a tea cup one time, a coffee cup at another for measuring, a dessert spoon one time, teaspoon another etc? There is but one way to

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Scales and Measures

Scales and Measures

Scales must be like Cæsar’s wife “above suspicion”—tested by local authorities for accuracy and worth the understanding that you will have them officially tested and “blessed” and sealed by the “Sealer.” There are many kinds of scales—avoid the kind which has a spring under the pan as the spring unless a very expensive one gets out of order. The hanging pan spring scale is generally good with per 10 to 20 lbs. capacity. It registers the weight automatically on the pan. The folding scale of the s

49 minute read

Read Chapter

Liquid Measure

Liquid Measure

The quota here can comfortably be: 1 quart measure, 1 pint, and 1 ⁄ 2 pint—a 4 ounce graduate sub-divided to 1 dram or less. When buying those they should be cylindrical or conical with top diameter smaller than bottom diameter. These are purchasable in metal, enamel ware, etc. Must be made to wear; seamless and easily cleaned. The markings on these should be clear enough to avoid the gawky game of “Guess.” To avoid error in reading cone-shaped graduate, you will see that the subdivisions are mo

51 minute read

Read Chapter

Dry Measure

Dry Measure

Here the quota can be a nest of measures from 1 ⁄ 2 bushel to 1 quart. These measures should be of metal or well varnished wood bound by a metal or some sort of band on top. Cylindrical here is the best style. If conical have them with their tops 10% or 1 ⁄ 10 larger than bottom diameter. For your help:...

19 minute read

Read Chapter

Length Measure

Length Measure

How many a step has been wasted looking for a yard measure, etc. Why not have a measuring corner in the kitchen and add to it 1 yard measure or a tape 3 to 6 feet long? Isn’t that easy enough? A yard stick of course should be of well measured wood plus metallic ends or all of metal. It is most convenient if sub-divided not only into feet, inches and fractions, but into fractions of a yard. The more fractions really the less fractious will be your measurements....

24 minute read

Read Chapter

Preserving etc.

Preserving etc.

For testing accurately water densities, hydrometers are used. If in your community you intend to do a lot of preserving or candy making, even in your own home the saccharimeter (a kind of hydrometer) will take the guess work out of the necessary thickness of a syrup’s density. This is a short weighted spindle graduated from 0-70. When placed in water, the spindle rests on the bottom of the vessel and the reading at the surface is zero. As the density is increased, the spindle rises until when th

45 minute read

Read Chapter

Thermometers

Thermometers

Thermometers are useful things, if they are accurate and as nearly unbreakable as possible. There are a few good ones on the market. We cannot advocate the oven-door thermometer as there is hardly one which can stand the onslaught of banging and remain in on its accurate pinnacle! Many a good stove and many a bad one have inveigled purchasers because of their neat little thermometer on their oven doors. They work all well and good for a while but you know a thermometer is a “dainty” instrument a

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Precautions

Some Precautions

Quantity as well as quality is necessary in household economy. For this reason, it is well to consider a few precautions and as there are a few confusing things in even our “tables” it is best to drive ourselves up to them like a timid horse is lead to face the terror that causes him to shy and free himself from terror. The avoirdupois pound is larger than the Troy or apothecaries’ pound—avoirdupois is 7000 grains and the latter is 5760. But the troy or apothecaries’ ounce is larger than the avo

29 minute read

Read Chapter

Troy Weight

Troy Weight

In purchasing drugs and chemicals for the home, you may need to know these differences. Avoirdupois system should be used generally in bulk buying. But unless stiff regulations exist in your vicinity the apothecary is prone to sell all by the apothecary system. Troy weight is used by precious metal purveyors so the house is little concerned here....

16 minute read

Read Chapter

Fluid Ounces—Weight Ounces

Fluid Ounces—Weight Ounces

Like the “Pint’s a pound” fable so does “all ounces look alike to me” prevision disaster! The liquid ounce and the weight ounce are not the same . [In Great Britain, however, the fluid ounce of water does weigh an ounce avoirdupois.]...

13 minute read

Read Chapter

Dry and Liquid Quarts and Pints

Dry and Liquid Quarts and Pints

Without strict ordinances in your part of the world pretty confusion exists in the leveling of dry and liquid dissimilarities. The dry quart is 16% larger than the liquid—so you see the loss incurred if liquid measure is used for a dry purchase! When you buy a quart at the hardware store for home use, you can find out whether it is dry or liquid by filling it with water . The dry quart measure should weigh 2 pounds 6 3 ⁄ 4 ounces, the liquid quart would hold but 2 pounds 1 1 ⁄ 3 ounces of water

30 minute read

Read Chapter

Uncertain Quantities

Uncertain Quantities

The barrel measure is somewhat uncertain — It is best to find out your state regulations. The barrel differs according to state law and commodities sometimes. March 1915 a law was passed by (National) Congress. This applies to all dry commodities except such as have been sold by weight or numerical count (flour, sugar and cement). The standard barrel has a capacity of 105 dry quarts. The liquid barrel’s capacity is generally marked on its side....

21 minute read

Read Chapter

Sacks and Bags

Sacks and Bags

You are prone to “get the sack” here unless you are careful. There are usually 94 pounds of cement to the sack and 100 pounds of sugar. In the case of flour the weights are usually in multiples of a barrel 1 ⁄ 2 , 1 ⁄ 4 , 1 ⁄ 8 etc. expressed in pounds, but the custom is growing to drop the 1 ⁄ 2 pound, 1 ⁄ 4 pound, and 1 ⁄ 8 pound, from the weight of 1 ⁄ 8 , 1 ⁄ 16 , and 1 ⁄ 32 barrel size and make their weights 24, 12 and 6 pounds. (Barrel of flour has 196 pounds.) Potatoes generally weigh 2 1

41 minute read

Read Chapter

Heaped Bushel—Bulky Vegetables, Fruits etc.

Heaped Bushel—Bulky Vegetables, Fruits etc.

In different states the heaped measure is heaped differently, in some the measure is heapable to the point where the commodity falls “down and out,” in others the cone above the measure has certain lawful dimensions—So find out before you are fooled. In buying peas, dried beans etc. be sure they are measuring your purchase by dry not by liquid measures—or you will lose 15% of your purchase!...

20 minute read

Read Chapter

Baskets

Baskets

Basket sizes are just about standardized to 2 quart, 4 quart and 12 quart baskets....

4 minute read

Read Chapter

Boxes for Fruits

Boxes for Fruits

A national law says that the standard basket or boxes or container for small fruits, berries and vegetables shall be of the following capacities:—Dry half pint, dry pint, dry quart, or multiples of the dry quart....

10 minute read

Read Chapter

Cords of Wood

Cords of Wood

Practice differs here in large measure—Purchasers must find out local laws. In most States a cord of wood is 128 cubic feet—in piles 3 × 8 × 4 foot lengths. The lengths, however, into which wood is cut in some places is 3, or 2, or 1 1 ⁄ 2 feet! Measurements are sometimes made before and sometimes after splitting. The basket in some states measures fractions of cords, occasionally it is equal to a heaped bushel, in other states it is more specifically designated. Look up your laws, here all your

26 minute read

Read Chapter

Containers

Containers

Finally, check up the contents of your containers and notify the makers; you will help the public and the manufacturer. Statements of weight are in avoirdupois terms. Packages of 2 pounds or less are exempt from marking, and containers below 1 fluid ounce come under this exemption. Notify the maker if loss exists; it is a public service. Losses often occur from evaporation, leakage, bad packing, and consequent deterioration before opening. The manufacturer will be glad to get a notification if h

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Addition and Recapitulation

Addition and Recapitulation

Finally we have added to our familiar weights, measures, thermometers and scales—the hydrometer for candy making, preserves etc., the water meter which you don’t realize is working away in your home, the electric meter which silently subtracts coin from your pocket too, the gas meter which is just as financially obstreperous and if you are inquisitive meteorologically you may too have a barometer to tell the atmospheric pressure and presage the weather and the hygroscope or psychrometer which wi

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Refrigerators

Refrigerators

There are on the market admirable ice-boxes for the motorist. These come with partitions for ice and partitions for food. Some have racks in which bottles and other things are held firmly. The wicker basket lined with metal is a useful one and has a convenient carrying handle. It is of the finest workmanship of imported reed, with hardwood bottom covered with two coats of mineral paint. The covers are of three-ply basswood finished in dark forest green. There are straps to fasten the cover, and

52 minute read

Read Chapter

Cooking Outfits

Cooking Outfits

Campers use cooking outfits that motorists do well to copy. For example, the cooking outfits made of hard seamless aluminum, for from two to six persons, include, in the smallest set, one frying pan, two cooking pots, one coffee pot, two plates, two cups, two soup bowls, two knives, two forks, two dessert spoons and two teaspoons, all nested together in the big cooking pot, and weighing six pounds six ounces. The outfit measures 9 1 ⁄ 2 ″ × 8 3 ⁄ 4 ″, all wrapped in a canvas case. The nest for e

10 minute read

Read Chapter

Fuels

Fuels

Wood as a fuel is dangerous because it burns rapidly, makes a lot of ashes and has to be replenished so often. Kerosene makes a lot of trouble because there is such crass ignorance in its use. Some people seem to love to fill a lamp when it is burning. Of course this is the worst thing that one could do. And others dote on pouring kerosene on an open fire. Gasoline is explosive and as a fuel for the home not at all warranted. Water won’t be a very good extinguisher in these cases, but we will ta

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Medicaments

Medicaments

As well as cleaning fluids the presence of medicine and liniments made of ether and chloroform and alcohol are always causes of fire when not properly housed in the right kind of metal medicine chest and not directly over or near a gas jet or oil lamp. So remember to use carefully anything with these chemicals or camphor, varnishes, turpentine, benzine or gasoline. Keep them in tin cans, which are to be had for them. Use them in daylight. Never leave rags around saturated with oils, medicines or

3 minute read

Read Chapter

Heating and Garage Hazards

Heating and Garage Hazards

Coal and kindling should preferably be kept within a brick or stone enclosure and not stored against frame partitions nor directly against walls of boiler or furnace. It is well to see that the garden hose may be attached to the kitchen faucet. Never allow open flame lights in a garage. When filling the tank, run the auto outside, so that gasoline vapors will dissipate. Do not keep quantities of gasoline or calcium carbide inside of garage or dwelling. An approved underground storage tank is the

1 minute read

Read Chapter

The Big Eight

The Big Eight

The eight firemakers in the order of their devastating power are as follows: Electrical, due to carelessness and lack of proper inspection; matches and smoking; defective chimneys and flues; stoves, furnaces, pipings and boilers; spontaneous combustion; sparks on roofs, and petroleum and its products. From 1915 to 1919 the value of fires from these causes aggregated $1,416,375,845. Is it any wonder that there is now agitation all over the United States to have at least thirty minutes given each

26 minute read

Read Chapter

Extinguishers

Extinguishers

Every home, of course, should be equipped with the best possible extinguisher. There are any number of them on the market. Do you know of many motorists who refuse the call of the extinguisher? There are not many who have not one in their car, yet there are few homes with them. Large homes should have one on every floor. Small homes, even if they have not enough footage to lower their insurance rates, should have them to reduce the fire hazard. What kind should the householder buy? The chief thi

2 minute read

Read Chapter

Service

Service

Reliable firms will always tell you correctly what kind of an extinguisher to buy for your particular purpose. They will, too, in compliance with the Board of Underwriters’ rulings, watch the apparatus once a year and recharge if necessary. Actually they don’t always need it, but it is a wise ruling of the Board. There are some extinguishers excellent for outdoors, motor boating, etc., but which indoors are apt to give off suffocating fumes. There are extinguishers of large capacity on wheels fo

11 minute read

Read Chapter

Floor Coverings

Floor Coverings

Floor coverings such as mattings and carpets are to-day best taken care of by the vacuum cleaner. Hot water cloths with a suspicion of ammonia laid on top of matting are supposed to be a good thing for its longevity after it is vacuumed. Carpets are now coming back into being after years of retrogressive hate. Now on account of the vacuum cleaner they can be used in all their warmth and beauty and kept sanitary for ordinary uses by the vacuum cleaner. Talking of this: The only thing that this in

1 minute read

Read Chapter

Some Miscellanies

Some Miscellanies

Don’t let any solid foods get into the sink. Always have a good sink strainer. Soda and water is a good cleaner. Flush sink with hot water and clean it at least three times a day. Grease is a forbidden quantity in a sink and should any get in, the hot water flushing will disintegrate it. Warm water and soap, fine powders such as whiting, etc., will keep porcelain sinks in good order. Nickel can be cleaned with soap and water and polished with ungritty, well devised polishes. Never use anything t

3 minute read

Read Chapter

CHAPTER XLIV A FEW SUGGESTIVE BOOKS

CHAPTER XLIV A FEW SUGGESTIVE BOOKS

The following list is to give the reader a handle to the subjects lightly touched in this volume. The Home. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, C. P. Gilman. Housewifery. I. R. Balderston, Lippincott. The Business of the Household. C. W. Taber, Lippincott. The Principles and Practice of Plumbing. C. C. Cosgrove, Standard Plumbing Manufacturing Co., Pittsburg. Sanitation Practically Applied. H. G. Wood, John Wylie &amp; Sons. Kitchen Fire and How to Run It. S. S. Wright, S.S. Wright. Formulas for Soaps

6 minute read

Read Chapter