No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the twenty-first-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: it might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-sixteenth century-from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria. A pattern of innovation emerges as the women stoking these fires also stoked new global industries: from better soap to clean smudges to new ingredients for cooking. Laced with uproarious anecdotes of Goodman's own experience managing a coal-fired household, this fascinating book shines a hot light on the power of domestic necessity.
- ISBN10 1631497634
- ISBN13 9781631497636
- Publish Date 23 October 2020 (first published 16 April 2020)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher WW Norton & Co
- Imprint Liveright Publishing Corporation
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English