Stoves, Furnaces and Chimneys : Part 1

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 6 of 44)

If all American housekeepers could be taught how to select and manage the most economical and convenient apparatus for cooking and for warming a house, many millions now wasted by ignorance and neglect would be saved. Every woman should be taught the scientific principles in regard to heat and then their application to practical purposes, for her own benefit and also to enable her to train her children and servants in this important duty of home life on which health and comfort so much depend.

The laws that regulate the generation, diffusion and preservation of heat as yet are a sealed mystery to thousands of young women who imagine they are completing a suitable education in courses of instruction from which most that is practical in future domestic life is wholly excluded. We therefore give a brief outline of some of the leading scientific principles which every housekeeper should understand and employ, in order to perform successfully one of her most important duties.

Concerning the essential nature of heat and its intimate relations with the other great natural forces, light, electricity, etc., we should not attempt to treat, but should, for practical purposes, assume it to be a separate and independent force. Heat or caloric, then, has certain powers or principles. Let us consider them:

First, we find Conduction, by which heat passes from one particle to another next to it; as when one end of a poker is warmed by placing the other end in the fire. The bodies which allow this power free course are called conductors and those which do not are named non-conductors, Metals are good conductors; feathers, wool and furs are poor conductors; and water, air and gases are non-conductors.

Another principle of heat is Convection, by which water, air and gases are warmed. This is, literally, the process of conveying heat from one portion of a fluid body to another by currents resulting from changes of temperature. It is secured by bringing one portion of a liquid or gas into contact with a heated surface, whereby it becomes lighter and expanded in volume. In consequence, the cooler and heavier particles above pressing downward, the lighter ones rise upward, when the former, being heated, rise in their turn and give place to others again descending from above. Therefore a constant motion of currents and interchange of particles is produced until, as in a vessel of water, the whole body comes to an equal temperature.

Air is heated in the same way. In case of a hot stove, the air that touches it is heated, becomes lighter and rises, giving place to cooler and heavier particles, which, when heated, also ascend. It is owing to this process that the air of a room is warmest at the top and coolest at the bottom. It is owing to this principle, also, that water and air can not be heated by fire from above. For the particles of these bodies, being non-conductors, do not impart heat to each other; and when the warmest are at the top, they can not take the place of cooler and heavier ones below.

Another principle of heat (which it shares with light) is Radiation, by which all things send out heat to surrounding cooler bodies. Some bodies will absorb radiated heat, others will reflect it and others allow it to pass through them without either absorbing or reflecting therefore, black and rough substances absorb heat, (or light,) colored and smooth articles reflect it, while air allows it to pass through without either absorbing or reflecting. It is owing to this, that rough and black vessels boil water sooner than smooth and light-colored ones.

Another principle is Reflection, by which heat radiated to a surface is turned back from it when not absorbed or allowed to pass through; just as a ball rebounds from a wall; just as sound is thrown back from a hill, making echo; just as rays of light are reflected from a mirror. And, as with light, the rays of heat are always reflected from a surface in an angle exactly corresponding to the direction in which it strikes that surface. therefore, if heated are comes to an object perpendicularly - that is, at right angles, it will be reflected back in the same line. If it strikes obliquely, it is reflected obliquely, at an angle with the surface precisely the same as the angle with which it first struck. And, of course, if it moves toward the surface and comes upon it in a line having so small an angle with it as to be almost parallel with it, the heated air is spread wide and diffused through a larger space than when the angles are greater and the width of reflection less.

The simplest mode of warming a house and cooking food is by radiated heat from fires; but this is the most wasteful method, as respects time, labor and expense. The most convenient, economical and labor-saving mode of employing heat is by convection, as applied in stoves and furnaces. But for want of proper care and scientific knowledge this method has proved very destructive to health. When warming and cooking were done by open fires, houses were well supplied with pure air, as is rarely the case in rooms heated by stoves. For such is the prevailing ignorance on this subject that, as long as stoves save labor and warm the air, the great majority of people, especially among the poor, will use them in ways that involve debilitated constitutions and frequent disease.

The most common modes of cooking, where open fires are relinquished, are by the range and the cooking-stove. The range is inferior to the stove in these respects: it is less economical, demanding much more fuel; it endangers the dress of the cook while standing near for various operations; it requires more stooping than the stove while cooking; it will not keep a fire all night, as do the best stoves; it will not burn wood and coal equally well; and lastly, if it warms the kitchen sufficiently in winter, it is too warm for summer. Some prefer it because the fumes of cooking can be carried off; but stoves properly arranged accomplish this equally well.

After extensive inquiry and many personal experiments, the author has found a cooking-stove constructed on true scientific principles, which unites convenience, comfort and economy in a remarkable manner. Of this stove, drawings and descriptions will now be given, as the best mode of illustrating the practical applications of these principles to the art of cooking and to show how much American women have suffered and how much they have been imposed upon for want of proper knowledge in this branch of their profession. And every woman can understand what follows with much less effort than young girls at high-schools give to the first problems of Geometry - for which they will never have any practical use, while attention to this problem of home affairs will cultivate the intellect quite as much as the abstract reasoning of Algebra and Geometry.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.