The Cropper House Equipment Collection
In Small Things Used Each Day In The Kitchen
Bill Cropper collected kitchen food preparation items. He collected them by the dozens.
The physical labor that went into food preparation started when fire was first used. Technology improved the speed of processing. Specialized equipment was invented to make the process easier. In the current intensive phase of the Iron Age, literally thousands of inventions were patented to make life easier, faster and safer for food production. Before metals could be molded into shape, work was largely done by pounding, grinding or cutting. The Industrial Revolution produced machines large and small to speed up the processes. For instance, if one wishes to remove corn kernels from the cob, they can be twisted off, but if this is done all day, it is not only tiring, but it wears out hands. Hence, a mechanical corn sheller was invented. Hand cranked items were replaced by belt driven machines. These are generally for larger applications. Smaller versions were made for household use. Meat grinders are another item. Before them, if you wanted meat in small pieces, it had to be cut into cubes. Not a few fingers were cut doing this, but after the hand-cranked meat grinder was invented, dozens of similar variants were manufactured. What formerly took hours of manual labor now could be done in a matter of minutes. Bill Cropper collected these innocuous and commonplace laborsaving devices.
Different manufacturers ginders had minute differences that separate them. Apple peelers, cherry pitters and other items that saved housewives and servants countless hours and most importantly allowed them to make more food were a part of 19th and 20th century farms. Here you can see a good sample of the amazing ingenuity of invention.
If you could make enough to survive on for the winter, you kept your family going. If you could make a surplus, you could sell it. This is the distinction between subsistence farming and for-profit farming. The important thing to take with you is that each one of these devices replaced direct hand labor. But they also were hand operated by the people who worked and lived here. Their survival depended upon how much they could produce and how fast they could produce it before spoilage. Machinery allowed the production of vastly more product than hand labor. With excess production, more essentials can be bought.