New Old Crock Pot - 1930s?

Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support :

58limited

58limited

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 27, 2006
Messages
2,209
Location
Port Arthur, Texas
I just got this off of ebay and I haven't even cleaned it yet. The power cord looks new. It is an old "crock pot" advertised as being from the 1930s. It was made by A.J. Lindemann & Hoverson Co. There is no model or serial number, the tag on the bottom just lists the manufacturer and the volts/wattage.

 

The crock pot is metal and seems to be well insulated. It stays fairly cool on the outside. The lid is about an inch thick and insulated. It has an an aluminum insert and a set of triple pots to fit inside. This unit reminds me of the thermowell on a Chambers stove. It has no on/off switch, you simply reverse the plug where it connects to the side of the crock pot to change from low to high heat.

 

Does anyone have a manual for this?

 

 

[this post was last edited: 10/24/2011-23:03]

58limited++10-24-2011-23-03-12.jpg
 
It comes with a lifter to remove the triple pots. This lifter is very similar to the hard-to-find lifter used for the Chambers T-well pots.

[this post was last edited: 10/24/2011-23:04]

58limited++10-24-2011-23-03-59.jpg
 
I remember Greg (oldhouseman) advising that he had found a free-standing cooker like this, made by Westinghouse.  It was like a portable deep well cooker from a 40's/early 50's Westinghouse range.  I will have to ask him if he ever went back for it.
 
These were commonly known as

"Fireless Cookers," because the first ones appeared in the late 1890s-early 1900s, when coal, wood, or gas were the main cooking fuels.

The idea was to get the vessel and the food hot, and to close the vessel tightly, and let the retained heat cook.

Quaker Oats offered them for quite a while in a number of sizes. You would set it up after dinner to have the oatmeal perfectly cooked in the morning.

Everything new is old again?

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I had an L & H electric range for many years but at over 40" wide it was too big to fit in the assigned spot for the stove in most kitchens.  I think it was vintage 1931.  The burners were coiled elements in clay, and I presume very inefficient compared to more modern sealed coils.  Burner settings were "Low" "Medium" and "Fast."

 

I sold the stove at a garage sale/kegger I threw on a summer weekend many years ago.
 
Lawrence, I wasn't sure if they were still called Fireless Cookers into the 1930s.  This is the smallest, most self-contained one I've seen. Most of the fireless cookers, usually pre-1920, that I have seen were doubles and were fairly large stand alone units - not counter top like this one.

 

I plan to make a pot roast in this soon. The triples will be nice during the holidays to cook veggie sides when the rest of the stove top is being used.
 
Here's a couple of examples of cookers...

Made by Landers, Frary & Clark -

This one, I think is what was often refered to as a "fireless" cooker in their line. While not a manual, you might be able to get some suggestions from this brochure scan.

crevicetool++10-25-2011-19-22-44.jpg
 
This I do have,

The seller called it a "crock pot". I think Landers called it a portable deep well. I'm not sure. Mine has two heats in the same way yours does and was not offered with the removable accessories.

Shown with "Low side" of plug.

crevicetool++10-25-2011-19-28-24.jpg
 
I had one of the above Universal Cookers for a short time, I tried to use it but was dissappointed. Basically even on low, it would not turn off, and would just continue to heat up. I put a oven thermometer in it and it eventually got to 600, sitting there on the counter top of my kitchen, which I though was a little dangerous.

I suppose you could use it but you would have to manually turn it off from time to time, so it is quite interactive. I decided to just keep using the 40s stove I have which works just fine.
 
Just received this at my door-step today! Landers called this the "2 heat electric oven cooker. It's approx: 9.5 inches in diameter and 14 inches high. The instructions refer often to "stored heat". They give the times that the cooker should be allowed to run at each of the two heats, and when to "turn the current off and on", so I am assuming this thing won't shut off either. No thermostat. Mine has three pans that stack. But, the instructions say you can cook directly in the well too.

crevicetool++10-31-2011-17-28-32.jpg
 
Joy of Cooking

My copy is from 1972, and has an "alternative" section that explains how to do a clambake (buried in sand), pig roast, and other interesting ways of cooking. One of them is a "fireless cooker" which I always thought to be a little bit "off" from the instructions of the early crockpots of the time. After nearly 40 years, I finally have an explanation! This is a fascinating thing, I wonder why there weren't more of these around. Probably the cost was one factor, plus the attention to temperature another. I'll bet a lot of these saw use on the "back porch" or basement in the summertime attended to by "the help" or a busy housewife who didn't want to heat up the whole house by firing up the coal or wood stove.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top