The kitchen mirrors more effectively than any other room

in the house the great social changes that have taken place

in thc last hundred years. In the early part of this century it

would have been surprising to find a middle-class woman

in her kitchen. Her servants guarded their domain as

jealously as she and her family guarded theirs. Her sole

contact with the kitchen would have been with the cook

when she came upstairs to discuss the day s menus and

with the butler to arrange the wines for dinner. But I think

that many of the qualities of that below-stairs life should be

studied again bccause, instead of being old-fashioned and

inappropriate to the world today, they were simple,

effective and efficient. Kitchens and pantries were well

planned, cheerful places to work and often supported a

con ten ted work-force.

Kitchen design has altered dramatically in this century.

The effects of two world wars and enormous advances on

the technological fiont have made a woman s place in her

homc thr different from that of her grandmother s. Many

middle-class housewives in the 1920s and i93os were

ashamed that they could no longer afford the servants that

once supported their life-styles. Their kitchens reflected

this, being small, sad and dingy places where meals were

prepared as quickly and surreptitiously as possible.