Hey Jim. Fairly straightforward answer to this one, although I could write a tome, as this is indeed a research topic of mine‹and other architectural historians. Throughout the South, with some variation in strategies, the kitchen became integral to‹or as your house plans for Rockbridge County suggest, not conceptually integral to, but attached to‹houses after the Civil War. The very old rap about fear of fire and distaste for cooking odors certainly were additional reasons for building a detached kitchen, but the principal consideration was: who was doing the work? Slaves. Documents: There are lots of references in family letters and diaries‹mostly of southern women, not surprisingly‹to the difficulty of managing meal-prep in a separate building after the War, of relenting and building a new room for cooking onto the family dwelling-house, or as a less expensive expedient, buying a cook stove and turning the dining room into a space for cooking as well as eating. Buildings: At least in Virginia, the change from detached to attached kitchens occurred pretty fast. And at about the same time that circular-sawn lumber also began replacing pit- and reciprocating-sawn lumber in the Old Dominion. While circular saw mills were in wide use in other parts of the country after 1830, they did not start to outnumber other means of hand-prepping or mechanically prepping wood for building until after about 1870. Census records and the buildings themselves tell us this. Same reason: with bound laborers to keep busy, Virginia slave-owners had little incentive to spring for efficient new mechanisms. Once the labor is on longer so readily available, new strategies start to make sense. Exceptions: In southern cities, where lot sizes made efficient use of space a consideration‹even for the very wealthy‹kitchens sometimes were attached or integrated into the house, even when slaves were doing the domestic labor. One good example: John Carlisle¹s 1750-55 house in Alexandria, where the kitchen and other service spaces were in the cellar. Ah, but I feel a tome coming on, and your question deserves a direct reply so that others may consider and respond. Yr. Friend, Camille. >Subject: Kitchens & cooking >Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 10:26:41 -0400 >From: Jim Watkinson <[log in to unmask]> > > >Listers: > >While this may not necessarily be the forum, there is no H-FOOD or >H-Architecture (though perhaps there should be for there are H-Quilts >and H-Water). In any event, I recently ran across a set of blueprints >for a house built in or near Lexington, Virginia in 1890. The plans >note a "Kitchen Addition One Story High" with a "Vegetable Cellar under >the Kitchen." My question is, when in the South did most kitchens >become integral parts of large houses/households, rather than detached >buildings? The possibility for fire prevention certainly must have >played a role, as did the availability or lack thereof of >slaves/servants, among other factors. > >It seems like it might be (have been?) an interesting topic for >investigation. > >Please pardon the cross-post. > >Regards, >Jim Watkinson >James D. Watkinson, Ph.D. >Archives >Library of Virginia >>[log in to unmask]> >804.692.3804 To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html