KITCHEN SERFDOM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19866, 14 June 1927, Page 11

KITCHEN SERFDOM

AMERICA’S VIEWS. ENGLISH HOUSEWIFERY STILL MEDIAEVAL. “If the average housewife is still somewhere along the mediaeval ages in housekeeping history, I think it is largely the fault of the manufacturers and your failure to come to aid her in those problems,” said Mrs. Christine Frederick, an expert in household appliances, in her final address in England before her return to America, which was given in the household appliance section of the London Chamber of Commerce last month. “I have spent the last three months in Britain, and instead of amusing myself in the lounge of the hotel or even seeing your famous places, I have been studying nothing but your household conditions. I have visited twenty-five kitchens in every part of England—a real cook’s tour. I have visited showrooms, stores, and electric plants, and talked with countless persons in all , lines of the work, and I still say the reason that the' British home is not buying appliances in greater amount and variety is because you, the manufacturers of appliances and the dispensers of the new fuels, have not educated the British housewife and helped her to change into a more scientific and mechanical age of housekeeping. “The housewife who still carries coals, empties ashes, and lifts pots of water is a slave—a housekeeping serf. She, all too often, does not realise hei serfdom, or. if she does, she is so exhausted, discouraged, and acceptant that she is unable to attempt her own freedom. ’ ’