America’s Sydney Kitchens tells the story of this important room and features New England hearths, detached Sydney Kitchens on southern plantations, Spanish colonial Sydney Kitchens of the Southwest, elaborate nineteenth-century Sydney Kitchens in the Midwest, and middle-class open-plan homes of 1950s suburbia. The book traces technological developments such as the introduction of the cast-iron cookstove, the efficiency of the Hoosier cabinet, and the impact of the frozen food industry to suggest how these innovations have transformed kitchen work and changed women’s lives.