The 1950s began to deliver the leisure that the 1930s promised. Modern conveniences appeared at work and at home, and most significantly, in the kitchen. And the majority of these conveniences were targeted at women. As you’ll see over time, one of the areas I find really fascinating in the history of the button is the use of women in advertising.
For example, here’s a 1950 ad for push button cooking.
Some excerpts from the text…
It’s New! Another beautiful Push-button Range. With all the clean, cool, wonderful joys of G-E “Speed Cooking” at your finger tips!….
Grand-tasting meals — just by pushing buttons! A button for each cooking speed . . . the exact heat you want.
“Work” for women in these years in the U.S. meant a return to the kitchen, a return to homemaking. During the World War II years, women were relied on to perform a lot of the industrial work that men traditionally did, while the men were out trying to kill each other. Once the war ended, it was back to the kitchen. But it was a different kitchen.
The middle class was beginning to own more homes in the suburbs instead of apartments in the city. Families were moving away from each other, splitting up generations. This all meant that there were fewer people around to take care of the home than there were before, and the home was bigger. There was more work to do. Convenience became necessity.
And what could be more convenient than a grand tasting meal at the push of a button?
Just checking in after a long time and this is the first post I read — I currently have a push-button cooker! It’s in my apartment, a circa-1960 little unit with a few flourishes from that era like floor to ceiling windows, a floating concrete fireplace and a stainless steel kitchen unit with lots of buttons! I’ll try and take a photo this week and put it on Flickr account.
Hey! My grandmother still has that oven! in fact, we cooked spaghetti on it only two weeks ago. It actually is a pretty nice oven, if you like electric.
The “push button” part was actually pretty well thought out. Each burner had a row of buttons that set the burner to “warm/low/med/high” (or something like that). If I remember correctly, one of the burners lifted out and there was a well for deep frying.
I’ll have to take some pictures and put them on the website. When I do, I’ll link back here.
Here’s those photos I promised, click ‘more’ to work through the set. Congrats on all the good press — I like your project!
Hey Amanda, these are awesome! Thanks for posting.
I just can’t help wonder how the water from the sink doesn’t dribble over
into the stove.
Bill
I too enjoy ‘the push button magic!’ in my kitchen. My grandfather worked at GE Canada and he bought the stove for my grandmother. She had two kitchens and this stove was in her ’show’ kitchen and only used about a half dozen times per year. I inherited it about 4 years ago and have been using it in my own kitchen. The original model brochure refers to “Tel-A-Cook lights; a different colour for each cooking heat. You actually “cook by colour”. High speed Calrod elements with their 5 speeds, give just the right amount of heat for every cooking job. I love this stove but we try not to use the WM button because the blue light is the palest and several times we have not realized the burner was on and left the kitchen only to return a few hours later and realize the burner is still on.
are there any stoves that have push buttons on the front of the range that are recalled. i just moved into a condo and the range is green and the push buttons on the front of the range which i keep accidentally pressing with my hip or ass when i brush pass it or lean on it for what ever reason. it turns the top burners on, seems quite dangerous.
thanks
antonio
I grew up in a 1950’s home built by my father that had an electric pushbutton GE stove for 30+ years. It was huge. It had two ovens and a large skillet between 2 burners on each side.
On this model the all white buttons were right in the range of fire directly behind the burners where you had to reach over hot steam, get burnt, and bump pot handles landing your dish on your leg. The buttons were quite often completely covered by tall pans requiring moving the implement over to change the temperature.
Instead of low, medium, high type settings it had number ranges 1-9 and “high”. 1-9 were fine when you needed moderate temperatures, but 9 was usually hot enough to brown food and “high” was the scorch setting burning nearly everything.
The skillet was very nice for cooking breakfast items and steak, but I wasn’t upset to see it go with the number of times as a kid that I burnt arm cooking food over it. It would be a definite recall candidate in today’s world.
I also remember having to switch between the 9 and High (scorch) buttons to create a med-high setting. So every few minutes it was click click back and forth reaching over hot food. Button 9 was usually not hot enough to brown effectively unless you let food cook for a long time. The buttons were also placed in a packed row with no space in between. Your push finger had to be on its side, not straight on or two buttons would be pressed at the same time. When this happened neither of the two buttons pushed in all the way so it effectively switched off the burner leaving you wondering why your meal was not cooking. Oh yeah, I forgot there was an off button to the left of 1. I believe the temp for the ovens and skillet were adjusted on knobs, since you can’t realistically set accurate oven temperature with buttons.
I’ll take a gas run stove with knobs placed at the front of the unit any day over electric with buttons on the back. I couldn’t imagine a worse design for convenience or safety.
Hi,
I have this stove and I think it is great. THe buttons on mine light up in different colors.
It has a plug in for the toaster on the right side.
My problem is I am moving and can’t take it with me.
Does anyone know what I should be asking for it and where I might sell it?
Thanks
We have a late 50’s/early 60’s GE push-button with a double oven and the “temperature regulator” element, that you actually dial to a temp. It’s gorgeous, but it’s in our basement kitchen, which we’re in the process of remodeling. I’ll bet it was the original stove to the house. I’ve only cooked on it once, and we might also be selling it. It even has a rotisserie! I hate to part with it, but who needs a 40″ range in the basement? If anyone is interested, it’s white, and I can take pictures. I seem to think the buttons are not over the elements, they’re over the countertop area.
[…] used to be that it was okay to let the machine do the work, just push a button and behind the scenes the right thing happens. But at some point it seems the problem of feature […]