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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Frances and Mary Allen of Deerfield, Massachusetts, costumed and posed these four women cooking to illustrate Alice Morse Earle's Home Life in Colonial Days. Earle's books played an important role in popularizing the colonial era during the Colonial Revival. The photograph displays 18th and early 19th century kitchen technology, which would change greatly with the introduction of the cookstove in the mid-1800s. It also conveys information about gender roles: the kitchen is the domain of women, not men, and a young girl prepares for her adult responsibilities by working with and observing older women.

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