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The Other Kitchen Debate: Gender, Microwave Safety, and Household Labor in Late Cold War America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2022
Abstract
“The Other Kitchen Debate” places the history of the microwave oven in the context of Cold War anxieties and gender politics. Discrepancies between Soviet and U.S. safety standards, Soviet deployment of microwave espionage, and the prospect of nuclear war triggered fears about the possible dangers of kitchen appliances powered by low-level radiation. During the 1970s and early 1980s, politicians, government regulators, industry representatives, advertisers, home economists, media, and consumers engaged in lively debates over oven safety and the merits of microwave cookery. By the late eighties and early nineties, as East–West tensions waned and record numbers of American women entered the paid labor force, American media perceived fewer distinctions between the hazards posed by electronic ovens and those presented by their conventional counterparts. New definitions of safety redefined microwave ovens as purely domestic appliances, leaving questions about the potential risks of nonionizing radiation unresolved.
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- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.
References
Bibliography
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Google Scholar
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Daily Mail
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
The New Yorker
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New York Times Magazine
Google Scholar
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Marx de Salcedo, Anastacia. Combat-Ready Kitchen. How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat. New York: Current, 2015.Google Scholar
Matthews, Glenna. Just a Housewife: The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
May, Elaine Tyler.
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Parkin, Katherine J. Food Is Love: Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Rosen, Ruth. The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America. New York: Penguin, 2001.Google Scholar
Bailey, Beth. “She ‘Can Bring Home the Bacon’: Negotiating Gender in Seventies America.” In America in the Seventies, edited by Bailey, Beth and Farber, David, 107–128. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.Google Scholar
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Hammack, William. “Reverberations: The Greatest Discovery Since Fire.” Invention & Technology 20, no. 4 (Spring 2005): 48–56.Google Scholar
Oldenziel, Ruth, and Zachmann, Karin. “Kitchens as Technology and Politics: An Introduction.” In Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users, edited by Oldenziel, Ruth and Zachmann, Karin, 1–29. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Peacock, Margaret. “Samantha Smith in the Land of the Bolsheviks: Peace and the Politics of Childhood in the Late Cold War.” Diplomatic History 43, no 3 (June 2019): 418–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, Susan E. “Who Will Beat Whom? Soviet Popular Reception of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 9, no. 4 (2008): 855–904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, Susan E. “‘Our Kitchen Is Just as Good’: Soviet Responses to the American Kitchen.” In Cold War Kitchen: Americanization, Technology, and European Users, edited by Oldenziel, Ruth and Zachmann, Karin, 83–112. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Robinson, John P. “Who’s Doing the Housework?” American Demographics 10, no. 12. (December 1988): 24–30.Google Scholar
Spigel, Lynn. “Yesterday’s Future, Tomorrow’s Home.” Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures 11, no. 1 (May 2001): 29–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strober, Myra H., and Weinberg, Charles B.. “Strategies Used by Working and Nonworking Wives to Reduce Time Pressures.” Journal of Consumer Research 6, no. 4 (March 1980): 338–348.Google Scholar
Tran, Vivi. “The Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968: History, Accomplishments, and Future.” Third year paper. Harvard Law School, 2006. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8846732/Tran06.pdf.Google Scholar
Truitt, Linda. “Ownership of a Microwave Oven as Influenced by Feminine Role Perception and Feminine Role Behavior.” MA thesis, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, 1979.Google Scholar
Weber, Margaret. “The Cult of Convenience: Marketing and Food in Postwar America.” Enterprise & Society 22, no. 3 (September 2021): 605–634.Google Scholar
Atlanta Constitution
Google Scholar
Atlanta Daily World
Google Scholar
Baltimore Sun
Google Scholar
Boston Globe
Google Scholar
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Google Scholar
Chicago Defender
Google Scholar
Chicago Tribune
Google Scholar
Cincinnati Enquirer
Google Scholar
Daily Mail
Google Scholar
Indianapolis Star
Google Scholar
Los Angeles Times
Google Scholar
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Google Scholar
New York Times
Google Scholar
Orlando Sentinel
Google Scholar
Palm Beach Post
Google Scholar
Philadelphia Inquirer
Google Scholar
Salem Capital Journal (Oregon)Google Scholar
Seattle Times
Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal
Google Scholar
Washington Post
Google Scholar
Advertising Age
Google Scholar
Better Homes and Gardens
Google Scholar
Business Week
Google Scholar
Consumer Reports
Google Scholar
Cosmopolitan
Google Scholar
Good Housekeeping
Google Scholar
Ladies’ Home Journal
Google Scholar
The New Yorker
Google Scholar
New York Times Magazine
Google Scholar
Parents
Google Scholar
Popular Mechanics
Google Scholar
Psychology Today
Google Scholar
Redbook
Google Scholar
Time
Google Scholar
Town and Country
Google Scholar
People
Google Scholar
Woman’s Day
Google Scholar
Working Mother
Google Scholar
Thompson, J. Walter: Advertising America. Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Adam Matthew Digital, 2018.Google Scholar
Energy Information Administration Office of Energy Markets and End Use, U.S. Department of Energy. Residential Energy Consumption Survey: Household Characteristics, 1980. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982.Google Scholar
Energy Information Administration Office of Energy Markets and End Use, U.S. Department of Energy. Residential Energy Consumption Survey: Household Characteristics, 1984. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986.Google Scholar
Energy Information Administration Office of Energy Markets and End Use, U.S. Department of Energy. Residential Energy Consumption Survey: Household Characteristics 1990. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992.Google Scholar
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Technology Utilization Office. NASA Technology Utilization House: A “House of the Future” Is Ready Today. Hampton, VA: Langley Research Center [1977].Google Scholar
Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968, Public Law No. 90-602 [H.R. 10790], 82 Stat. 1173 (October 18, 1968).Google Scholar
Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968, Hearings on Public Law 90-602 Before the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, 93rd Congress (1973).Google Scholar
Radiation Health and Safety Hearings Before the Committee on Commerce
, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, 95th Congress (1977).Google Scholar
Spinoff 1977: An Annual Report. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Technology Utilization Office, 1977.Google Scholar
Spinoff 1978: An Annual Report. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Technology Utilization Office, 1978.Google Scholar
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Microwave Oven Radiation.” www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/resources-you-radiation-emitting-products/microwave-oven-radiation.Google Scholar
Women’s Bureau, Department of Labor. “Women in the Labor Force.” www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/facts-over-time#WomenLF.Google Scholar
DollarTimes. Inflation Calculator: The Changing Value of a Dollar. www.dollartimes.com/inflation.Google Scholar
1999 A.D. Directed by Madden, Lee. Written by Tom Thomas. Produced by Philco-Ford Corporation, 1967. Accessed November 17, 2021, https://archive.org/details/1999-AD-1967-/1999-a-d-1967-10mbps.mp4.Google Scholar
Corera, Gordon. “‘Havana Syndrome’ and the Mystery of the Microwaves.” BBC News, September 9, 2021. Accessed November 17, 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-58396698.Google Scholar
Hanna, William, and Barbera, Joseph. The Jetsons. The Complete First Season. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2017.Google Scholar
Whirlpool TimeMaster commercial [ca. 1985]. YouTube. Accessed November 17, 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDd8OnRTxSQ.Google Scholar