Stoves

Author: Nora Lewis

Suggested citation:

Lewis, N.. (2026). Stoves. Technology Assessment Project Case Study Library, University of Michigan. https://stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/tap-case-study-library/stoves

Stoves

Key Takeaways

• Western or foreign-designed technologies are not always useful and applicable in other global contexts.
• More advanced energy technology alone is not enough to ameliorate inequities in quality of life, public health, and energy poverty. This energy must be directed to communities that need it, not solely new forms of work or technology.
• The negative implications of energy poverty often affect women most deeply.

History of the Modern Stove

For much of human history, open fires were the most accessible tool for cooking food and heating living spaces (Rupp, 2015). It was often labor-intensive to tend to these open flames, and before the age of matches, almost constant care had to be taken to prevent a spark from dying out. Yet over the course of centuries, we have innovated our cooking and heating techniques to tame the unwieldy nature of fire. Cookware and mud, clay, and stone structures were some of the earliest additions to these processes (Still, n.d.). This technology was scattered across the globe, with clay apparatuses that completely enclosed fire first recorded in Qin dynasty China, and the earliest record of what we might consider a modern stove today appearing in Alsace, France in 1490 (National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, n.d.). Early stoves used wood and later coal to operate, but the fumes and smoke produced by these models proved to be a health hazard, and by the 19th century, these older models saw substantial improvements in efficiency and safety (Peterat, 2019).

Global Stove Dynamics

Much of the formal patenting of innovative stove technology was concentrated in the West (Harris, 2021). Before gas and electric models, open hearths were popular in the United States and Europe (Sperry, 2024; Khederian, 2025). The hearth went through many iterations in this period, toying with metal lining and more efficient heating mechanisms. In particular, the Franklin Stove, invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742, was a pivotal metal-lined open hearth designed to minimize smoke output and maximize heat production (National Archives, Founders Online, n.d.). Though the model didn't end up being commercially successful and ultimately failed to deliver on efficiency and smoke-minimization aims, it acted as an important transitional household technology and jumping off point for subsequent open hearth models.

As the open hearth continued to see innovation in efficiency and safety, gas and electric stove models appeared not long after. The development of these closed systems of stove technology were also generally focused in the West, with English inventor James Sharp patenting the gas stove in 1826, and American inventor William Hadaway patenting the electric stove by 1896 (Lopes Ramos, n.d.; National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, n.d.). As more wide-spread electrification and natural gas infrastructure took the United States and Europe by storm, it was easier for gas and electric models to gain prevalence in these households. The spread of this kind of stove technology elsewhere in the world was largely based on the power infrastructure available to support such models (Urmee & Gyamfi, 2014).

Since the 1970s, Improved Cookstove (ICS) initiatives have taken root across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast and Southern Asia, and Latin America to bring more efficient, safe, and environmentally-friendly stoves to communities that otherwise rely on riskier cooking mechanisms (Urmee & Gyamfi, 2014). ICSs are not necessarily gas or electric, but are often designed to use biomass in a way that maximizes thermal and fuel efficiency while minimizing harmful emissions. China and India have perhaps made the best progress in this adoption of "clean" fuel stoves (also including non-biomass models under this umbrella), with the former expected to hit 100% access and the latter 81% by 2030 (International Energy Agency, 2024). China and India in particular have seen explosions of GDP and growing tech sectors over the past several decades, expansions which may have bolstered the spread of more innovative household technologies (Caballero & Fengler, 2023). Distinct political approaches, such as India's Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) subsidy program or China's Clean Stove Initiative (CSI), have also helped push these nations beyond many of their neighboring peers by further incentivizing the uptake of gas and electric stoves (Guta et al., 2023).

But not every clean stove initiative has been successful in moving the needle on adoption, particularly programs that fail to take into account the cooking needs and technological valuations of users (Sesan, 2014). Without the input of those who will actually be using the technology in the production phase, there is little incentive for the uptake of these models, emphasizing that the gas and electric stoves that might be commonplace in many Western homes cannot simply be copied and pasted into other contexts (Guta et al., 2023; Sesan, 2014). Not only is energy infrastructure vastly different depending on region or rurality, but specific uses of stove technology can vary greatly and impact what technology coheres best in certain environments. In Morocco, the use of community ovens is a staple in many neighborhoods, where residents frequently do not own an individual oven but instead bring their dough to local ovens where bakers will prepare it (Hembree, 2019). Here, the unifying nature of communal food preparation takes precedence over the convenience of an oven in the home, displaying one clear instance in which cultural ideals shape technological uptake (Condit, 2020). This mechanism for food preparation also saves residents money on fuel and minimizes the heating of homes in the hot Moroccan climate (Hembree, 2019). Thus, valuations of oven technology in Morocco are not just based on the convenience and individualization that has driven Western household innovations, but on the parameters of their unique environment.

Gendered Implications of Stove Development

Energy Poverty and Global Dissemination of Stove Technology

Household tasks remain largely segregated by gender, even with the entrance of more women into education and employment sectors (Chamie, 2018). Worldwide, women take on jobs such as cooking, laundry, and dishwashing at heightened rates within heterosexual homes (Ferrant et al., 2014). All of these tasks require a reliable energy source, whether it be solid biomass such as firewood and manure, or gas and electricity. When disparities in access to energy exist, a phenomenon some have coined "energy poverty," the tasks traditionally assigned to women in the home, such as preparing a meal on the stove, become a constant challenge (Köhlin et al., 2011; Min et al., 2024). Despite the innovative pathway of stove development over the last two centuries, simplification of tasks in the home is not necessarily synonymous with these advances (Petrova & Simcock, 2021).

For women working in the home, the need to collect wood or manure to cook is not only an arduous process, but leads to disproportionate negative health impacts through inhaled particulate emissions (World Health Organization, 2024). In areas with poor electrical and gas grid coverage, the improvements made in stove technology and seen commonly in the United States, East Asia, and Europe are not always accessible. Thus, alternative kinds of energy source collection place an undue burden on women, who in most cases worldwide must keep a home running without the ease of a gas burner or electric range.

Does Household Technology Make Housework Easier?

Beyond the asymmetric dissemination of stove technology globally, there is also the question of whether iterative models have simplified household tasks for women with access to gas and electric models across the board. Though undoubtedly there are many benefits to a safer and more efficient heat source, these technologies have also shifted the expectation of how much work can realistically be done by a woman in the home each day (Cowan, 1983). The luxury of an instantaneous and manageable flame enables heightened productivity and consumption, but also a new milieu of unpaid labor. Technology in the home helps make these gendered divisions of labor even more distinct, promoting what sociologist Ruth Cowan calls a shift of the home from "a unit of production to a unit of consumption" (Cowan, 1983). As industrialization and the rapid technologicalization of our homes overlapped come the late 19th century, men were able to leave the home and work in factories without the need to chop wood and carry water, while women were still expected to handle the housework and foster this new scope of consumption for their families.

Thus, iterative models of the stove and other household technology have not been a silver bullet for ameliorating the demands of housework for women. Where tasks such as gathering and chopping firewood were eliminated with new stove technology, the preparation of meals remained an intact role of women in the home.

In the age of clean energy transitions and energy poverty, there are persistent challenges to completing this work without dependable energy sources, and without adverse health and environmental impacts (Petrova & Simcock, 2021). Household technologies like the stove then become battlegrounds both for advancements in productivity, public health, and environmental protections, while also reinforcing nuclear family structures and heightening the energy consumption we seek to wrangle with current climate initiatives (Cowan, 1983). It is imperative that we center women in initiatives for cleaner stove technology in order to reach these former goals and contend with these latter lingering challenges.

Relevance to Advanced Nuclear Energy

We chose stoves as a potentially positive case of a stabilizing technology, whose newer iterations emphasized safety by minimizing negative public health outcomes striving for more efficient and convenient usage. What we found was not an overwhelmingly positive story, where newer iterations of the stove (from wood-burning to gas and electric) surely minimized some problems, such as indoor air pollution and time spent fetching firewood to cook food and warm a home, but also produced problems elsewhere. The stove did not, as it purported, necessarily make housework for women more efficient and smaller in scope, it merely increased how much housework might realistically be done by a woman in the home throughout the day. In this way, the gendered burden of this technology persisted, increasing the capacity of work to be done and energy to be used in the process. Advanced nuclear may enable energy additions instead of energy replacement in a similar way, and further strain natural resources and promote environmental degradation as a result. The pairing of advanced reactors with things like data centers feels like a good example here, where the heights of our consumption and thirst for information will be further cemented by a steady supply of low-carbon energy.

Key Sources

Cowan, R. S. (1983). More work for mother: The ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave. Basic Books.

Guta, D., Zerriffi, H., Baumgartner, J., Jain, A., Mani, S., Jack, D., Carter, E., Shen, G., Orgill-Meyer, J., Rosenthal, J., Dickinson, K., Bailis, R., & Masuda, Y. (2024). Moving beyond clean cooking energy adoption: Using Indian ACCESS panel data to understand solid fuel suspension. Energy Policy, 184, 113908.

Köhlin, G., Sills, E. O., Pattanayak, S. K., & Wilfong, C. (2011). Energy, gender and development: What are the linkages? Where is the evidence?

National Archives, Founders Online. (n.d.). An account of the new invented Pennsylvanian fire-places. University of Virginia Press. Retrieved March 27, 2025.

Sesan, T. (2014). Global imperatives, local contingencies: An analysis of divergent priorities and dominant perspectives in stove development from the 1970s to date. Progress in Development Studies, 14(1), 3-20.

Still, D. (n.d.). The evolution of cooking stoves. Fogarty International Center, U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Urmee, T., & Gyamfi, S. (2014). A review of improved cookstove technologies and programs. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 33, 625-635.

References

Caballero, J., & Fengler, M. (2023, April 14). China and India: The future of the global consumer market. Brookings.

Chamie, J. (2018, January 25). More women stay at home than men. Yale Global Online.

Condit, C. (2020, July 9). Everyone is family at the furan. Common Pursuits.

Cowan, R. S. (1983). More work for mother: The ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave. Basic Books.

Ferrant, G., Pesando, L. M., & Nowacka, K. (2014). Unpaid care work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes. OECD Development Centre.

Guta, D., Zerriffi, H., Baumgartner, J., Jain, A., Mani, S., Jack, D., Carter, E., Shen, G., Orgill-Meyer, J., Rosenthal, J., Dickinson, K., Bailis, R., & Masuda, Y. (2024). Moving beyond clean cooking energy adoption: Using Indian ACCESS panel data to understand solid fuel suspension. Energy Policy, 184, 113908.

Harris, H. (2021, July 12). A stove less ordinary: Stoves & patents. A Stove Less Ordinary.

Hembree, M. (2019, February 25). Communal ovens in Morocco: Baking bread as a community. City Nibbler.

International Energy Agency. (2024). Access to clean cooking.

Khederian, R. (2025, February 7). Fireplace history and how to cook in a fireplace. Second Story.

Köhlin, G., Sills, E. O., Pattanayak, S. K., & Wilfong, C. (2011). Energy, gender and development: What are the linkages? Where is the evidence?

Lopes Ramos, A. (n.d.). A brief history of the kitchen: How heat and food bring people together. John Desmond Ltd. Retrieved March 27, 2025.

Min, B., O'Keeffe, Z. O., Abidoye, B., Gaba, K. M., Monroe, T., Stewart, B., Baugh, K., Sánchez-Andrade Nuño, B., & Meddeb, R. (2024, June 12). Beyond access: 1.18 billion in energy poverty despite rising electricity access. UNDP, Data Futures Exchange.

National Archives, Founders Online. (n.d.). An account of the new invented Pennsylvanian fire-places. University of Virginia Press. Retrieved March 27, 2025.

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. (n.d.). Electric range. Retrieved March 27, 2025.

Peterat, L. (2019, July 9). Cook stove revolution of the 1800s. The British Columbia Food History Network.

Petrova, S., & Simcock, N. (2021). Gender and energy: Domestic inequities reconsidered. Social & Cultural Geography, 22(6), 849-867.

Rupp, R. (2015, September 2). A brief history of cooking with fire. National Geographic.

Sesan, T. (2014). Global imperatives, local contingencies: An analysis of divergent priorities and dominant perspectives in stove development from the 1970s to date. Progress in Development Studies, 14(1), 3-20.

Sperry, L. (2024, November 9). Picturing the past: Hearth cooking and oven evolution. The Transylvania Times.

Still, D. (n.d.). The evolution of cooking stoves. Fogarty International Center, U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Urmee, T., & Gyamfi, S. (2014). A review of improved cookstove technologies and programs. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 33, 625-635.

World Health Organization. (2024, October 16). Household air pollution.

Photo: Clean cooking in refugee settlement, Lobuje Refugee Settlement, West Nile Uganda. Laura Tilden-Fox / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons