michaelanthony wrote:Just playing the devils advocate for a moment. Is there any evidence, printed or photographed, of actual cooking under the dome?... or is this simply a modern theory. The reason for my question is homes with parlor stoves would most likely have had a kitchen as well where the cooking took place. One reason for my thought is homes of that era seem to have had hand made area rugs and spilling foods while cooking surely would have brought the wrath of the matriarch. I do realize dinner could be kept warm for father and the kitchen range put to bed.
I am keeping in mind some stoves of grandeur had a piggy back oven.
We have to look at what life was like when these stoves were new and that will sometimes provide answers.
What was also common when these stoves were new was less home ownership and more of the population living in boarding house, hotels, or just renting a room in a private house (having a boarder). My Father's parents took in boarders up until about WWII.
Sometimes the price of a room included meals, and sometimes not. For those apartments and rooms without kitchen, or meals provided, many of the base heaters and mica burners used as a selling point what was called a "tea shelf" on the back for heating a tea pot. Some of the grander mica burners even had a small oven on the back. These were stoves that could be used in those type of apartments, and boarding houses. As more places were hooked up to electricity, those stoves became less popular - likely because of being replaced by the electric hot plate, or small table-top two burner gas stoves.
Remember that many of these rooms/apartments lacked plumbing, even in the early days of indoor plumbing. Early adds for a room sometimes said things like, "Two rooms and path" meaning there was a sitting room, bed room and an outhouse. Later, as indoor plumbing caught on, there would have been a shared bathroom "down the hall".
Paul