I have another web project I should probably mention, since it is somewhat related to the subject of this blog: A “model kitchen”: Images of early 20th Century kitchens and kitchen goods from Google Books (and elsewhere) Some of you may have already seen it when I posted it as a link on Metafilter Projects a couple of months ago, but I never mentioned it here or on Slumberland, I think.

When we started to redo the kitchen, which was built in 1911, I had to (because I’m just that kind of a geek) try to find tons of images of kitchens from that era to try to understand what the kitchen once looked like and how it was used when the house was new. Google Books, as it turns out, has bunches of old magazines and books that have the sort of images I was looking for. Many of them are in old ads. I also have found images in other sources such as the Library of Congress and the Seattle Municipal Archives.

I’ve collected a lot of these images and divided them into the categories of General kitchen views, plans, and cabinets; Refrigerators (ice boxes); Stoves; Furniture; Sinks; Accessories; and Miscellaneous. There are some amazing images, including the 1906 dishwasher and the rotating “U-Turn-It” apartment fixture. Here are a couple of examples from the “General kitchen views” category:

Unfortunately, if you are not in the US, most of the images won’t work for you. This is because I used Google Books’ “clip” function to make and host most of the images, and Google won’t show you the images if you’re not in the US. Sometimes changing the “.com” in the Google Books URL to your country’s usual domain (such as .co.uk, or .ca) will make it work for you, but if not, you may not be able to see the images. I apologize. Someday I will try to host all the images myself, and get rid of the Google clips.