The National Film Preservation Foundation has awarded a grant to the Hagley Museum and Library to preserve It Happened in the Kitchen, a 1941 film sponsored by the Modern Kitchen Bureau. This film describes the benefits of a modern kitchen while providing insight into the impact of new technology, the evolution of domestic spaces, the rise of American consumer culture, and evolving gender roles of the time.
The Modern Kitchen Bureau was founded in 1936 to promote the idea of a "modern electric kitchen." Representatives from a significant number of major American corporations that manufactured appliances and electronics, including General Electric, Westinghouse, and Frigidaire, comprised the Bureau’s executive committee and regional leadership.
In 1941, the Bureau produced the consumer-facing film It Happened in the Kitchen to focus on the importance of having a "modern kitchen" and how modernization benefitted the average American family. An investment in one’s home to improve their quality of life is “the way Americans do things,” according to the film’s script.
An article in the October 1941 issue of Electrical Merchandising describes the film this way.
‘It Happened in the Kitchen,’ a 40-minute Kodachrome talking movie, will tell audiences of several hundred people the story of all-electric kitchens in a way once possible with only one or two persons at a time—when a salesman sat down with prospects and went over the story step by step. The picture explains the reason for the three kitchen work centers and the various basic arrangements—covers all kinds of kitchens, old and new, large and small, city, suburban and farm—and does a genuine selling job on electric refrigerators, ranges, water heaters, roasters, dishwasher sinks, and all the other kitchen appliances.” [“‘It Happened in the Kitchen’ MKB’s New Color Movie Shown,” Electrical Merchandising, October 1941, p. 40.]
It Happened in the Kitchen was produced in Cleveland, Ohio by Cinecraft Productions. Although there are no credits on the film, the film's male lead is Kirk Willis, a director and actor at the Cleveland Play House. Hollywood-trained Ray Culley, the co-founder of Cinecraft in 1939, directed the film.
We look forward to having this film restored and we are grateful to the National Film Preservation Foundation for their financial support. The newly restored print will be released next year via the Hagley Digital Archives.