[The history of stovemaking in the nineteenth century, as
businesses turned from small to mass manufacturing, is the story of
the making and selling of the first universal consumer durable.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

HOW STOVEMAKERS HELPED INVENT MODERN MARKETING  
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Howell J. Harris
February 20, 2023
JSTOR
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_ The history of stovemaking in the nineteenth century, as businesses
turned from small to mass manufacturing, is the story of the making
and selling of the first universal consumer durable. _

An advertising card for White, Warner & Co. Stoves and Ranges ,
Wikimedia Commons

 

Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But
how did this “must-have” come to be?

In a time before central heating and electricity, stoves were big
business. But their legacy wasn’t just food and warmth: historian
Howell J. Harris writes that the stove industry of yore pioneered the
phenomenon of modern marketing. Harris tracks the history of
stovemaking in the nineteenth century as businesses turned from small
to mass manufacturing.

“Stovemakers developed methods of product differentiation, began to
establish valuable brand identities, reached out to their consumers,
and built their own direct-sales networks, at a time when few other
manufacturers, particularly in the metalworking trades, saw any
necessity to do likewise,” notes Harris.

At the time, hardware manufacturers didn’t market their own goods.
Instead, wholesalers took on the responsibility for them. Stoves were
manufactured at furnace foundries and sold at local warehouses. But
with the dawn of the stove-specific foundry and a dramatic improvement
in transportation beginning in the 1830s, manufacturers took
responsibility for their products.

No longer able to rely on local markets alone, these stove innovators
attempted to distinguish individual brands. They patented new features
and created model names—lots of them. Harris notes that a staggering
four-fifths of all design patents in the 1840s, and two-thirds of
those issued in the 1850s, had to do with stoves and their features.

The mass production of stoves made for more similarity across markets,
though Harris points out that put extra pressure on smaller features
like handy design innovations and add-ons intended to make stoves
stand out. Stoves weren’t just stoves any more: they were Jewett
Stoves, St. Lous Air-Tights, Franklin Saddlebags.

These metal behemoths made their way to major cities by rail and ship,
then to “stove districts” and stores. In non-urban areas,
retailers purchased merchandise from cities and managed the shipping
process. Many of these retailers were tinware peddlers turned tinware
store owners with vast distribution networks and sales territories.
They cleaned up travel-worn stoves, installed, and even repaired them
while overseeing complex credit and barter systems.

Traveling salesmen dubbed “stove drummers” crisscrossed the
nation, selling stoves and collecting on debts. “They traveled
light, carrying trade gossip, catalogs, and not much else, visiting
retailers in their own premises,” Harris writes. These salespeople
also provided customer service and rudimentary market intelligence,
reporting back to headquarters on how consumers like the stoves and
what the competitors were selling.

The stove boom ended in the late nineteenth century, but by then the
die had been cast. Even as stove prices fell, Harris writes,
stovemakers achieved “universal market penetration…transforming
stoves into objects bought as consumption items, on grounds of their
style, and even beauty, as well as their functional utility.”

The strategies stove salespeople cooked up are still used today, even
if the products themselves have changed.

Resources

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students.
JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our
articles for free on JSTOR.

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