Beyond the Urban Kitchen: Refrigeration and Domesticity across Australia and the Pacific Islands, 1920s–1940s

Abstract

Abstract Histories of the rise of domestic refrigeration conventionally situate the appliance within the urban household. An emphasis on the spread of electrification and notions of idealized femininity, abundance, and scientific home management together attribute an emblematic “Americanness” to the refrigerator. Moving beyond the confines of the urban kitchen to rural and tropical regions of Australia and across the island Pacific, this article examines the appeal and influence of the home appliance in areas remote from reliable or affordable electricity, as well as from accessible supplies of perishable foods produced elsewhere. In such locations the refrigerator was understood differently, centering ideals of white settler self-sufficiency, masculine mastery of the environment, and notions of colonizing capacity. Examining the early history of this appliance in these places also reveals how technological influences and cultural aspirations moved between Australia and the islands and vice versa, intensifying in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In repositioning the refrigerator through such engagements and entanglements, this article offers new insights into patterns and practices of colonial domesticity, provisioning, and consumption.