Kitchen Dreams in the 1950s

Back in the 50s, people had high hopes for the future. It was commonplace to believe in a colony in Moon, talking robot helpers and glowing democracy that would save us all with a wink of capitalism.
So no wonder the scientists dreamed up all kinds of fancy aids to help in the kitchen.

This beautiful dream was cooked up by the engineers at General Motors in 1954. Electric mixers and food blenders would rise out of the counters and motorized cabinets move up and down.

In this idea, everything would work out like magic with the touch of a button.

And this image shows us a quite advanced scifi-kitchen. As in, it is still not possible. Frigidaire´s and General Motors´Kitchen of Tomorrow in 1956. The IBM manufactured card containing a recipe file not only shows the picture of a dish on the screen, but it would dispense the ingredients and start preparing the dish itself. Automatic laundry machine would start washing clothes on its own when the load reached 8 lbs.Now that would be a  housewives/or househusbands savior!

This era is quite charming. Capitalism and peer pressure pushed the middle class into buying all the new shiny toys for their new suburbian houses, and commercials emphasized how having all the latest gadgets, floors, furnitures etc. for your home was absolutely necessary. Otherwise you were an unacceptable house(wife). Everything was pushed with appeals to technology, modern times and normality. It was "abnormal" not to have a modern kitchen and a house. Nowadays advertising is much subtler, which can be noticed while watching this video.

Kitchen Dreams in the 1950s