What’s in Your Microwave Oven?
By SUSAN STRASSERAPRIL 14, 2017
Earlier this year — right around the time that Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s senior adviser, was telling us that microwave ovens could be spying on us — some friends and I rented a weekend house with no microwave oven. We didn’t mind reheating leftovers on the stove, but we did talk about how unusual it was not to have one — though in hindsight I guess we were happy that no one was watching our every move.
Still, I had microwaves on my mind when I realized that 2017 is the appliance’s 50th anniversary.
Actually, if you are a person to whom facts still matter, the microwave has several possible anniversaries. Like many 20th-century household innovations, it was a product of World War II research and development in radar technology.
After the war, engineers at Raytheon, a company that manufactured magnetron tubes, patented both a process for heating food and an oven-shaped device. In 1947, Raytheon introduced its Radarange for industrial use. Tappan, which licensed the technology, offered a wall-mounted appliance in 1955, for use in high-end kitchen remodels.
It cost $1,295, the equivalent of about $12,000 today. Not many sold.
Then in 1967, Amana introduced the first countertop microwave oven, with new technology that brought the price down to $495. But that was still expensive, equivalent to $3,600 now.
Consumer resistance was also fed by reports that microwave ovens leaked dangerous radiation. New government standards went into effect in 1971 and helped alleviate those fears, and sales began to rise.
The success of innovations depends not only on their novelty and their price, but also on commercial and social contexts. Even as the price dropped and consumers began to believe in their safety, few families bought microwaves. It took an array of changes in business, social and cultural contexts to make that rented house seem peculiar.
But roasts were not the microwaved foods of the future. We may use the device to reheat homemade soup, but its ubiquity is based on the convenience of factory-made food. In 1979, Swanson (which already made the foil-wrapped TV dinner) announced a line of 14 frozen foods formulated and packaged for microwaving, including chicken in wine sauce and three breakfast items.
The company’s vice president compared it to color TV, which had “plodded along” at first but exploded after NBC went to all-color programming. But the takeoff depended as well on the development of refrigerated storage and shipping, supermarket freezer cases and home freezers that could store more than ice cubes. Microwaveable popcorn was yet to come, along with its high-tech packaging, which until 2016 contained chemicals now banned from food by the Food and Drug Administration.
Finally, during the mid-1980s, the price of microwave ovens began to drop as Japanese and Korean manufacturers entered the American market with devices that took less countertop space. By 1986, a quarter of American households owned microwaves.
By then, more than half of married women were employed full or part time, and nobody needed to ask why they would want timesaving technologies. Those numbers kept growing, and so did the proportion of microwaves; in 2009, they could be found in 96 percent of American homes.
But it wasn’t just working moms who used them. Just about anyone could follow instructions on the box. Even kids used microwaves: Most parents consider the device safer than open flames and hot burners, though medical journals described children burned by steam and hot food. And even people who disdained prepared foods used the office microwave to reheat leftovers brought from home.
As a 1979 home economics textbook pointed out, cooks could once multitask — feed the baby, set the table or make a salad while the main course was on the stove. But with a microwave, individual meals could be prepared one person at a time. Some families gave up on the idea that everybody had to eat together.
The family dinner still lives, according to a 2013 Harris Poll. Eighty-six percent of Americans residing with family members reported sitting down to dinner together at least once a week, 58 percent four times a week. But old people skew the statistics. Younger people eat together less and say they tried to get out of family dinners when they were kids.
Almost everybody said that togetherness was the essential aspect of the family dinner, but more than two-thirds still thought a home-cooked meal was important. This high standard speaks to the power of ritual, and of food.
These days, when politics looms large, it’s easy to disparage all else as trivial. But everything has a history. And though we think of domestic labor and family dinners as personal and private, the history of the microwave oven has everything to do with government regulation, employment statistics, war-related scientific research, foreign trade, municipal solid waste and public health.
By SUSAN STRASSERAPRIL 14, 2017
Earlier this year — right around the time that Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s senior adviser, was telling us that microwave ovens could be spying on us — some friends and I rented a weekend house with no microwave oven. We didn’t mind reheating leftovers on the stove, but we did talk about how unusual it was not to have one — though in hindsight I guess we were happy that no one was watching our every move.
Still, I had microwaves on my mind when I realized that 2017 is the appliance’s 50th anniversary.
Actually, if you are a person to whom facts still matter, the microwave has several possible anniversaries. Like many 20th-century household innovations, it was a product of World War II research and development in radar technology.
After the war, engineers at Raytheon, a company that manufactured magnetron tubes, patented both a process for heating food and an oven-shaped device. In 1947, Raytheon introduced its Radarange for industrial use. Tappan, which licensed the technology, offered a wall-mounted appliance in 1955, for use in high-end kitchen remodels.
It cost $1,295, the equivalent of about $12,000 today. Not many sold.
Then in 1967, Amana introduced the first countertop microwave oven, with new technology that brought the price down to $495. But that was still expensive, equivalent to $3,600 now.
Consumer resistance was also fed by reports that microwave ovens leaked dangerous radiation. New government standards went into effect in 1971 and helped alleviate those fears, and sales began to rise.
The success of innovations depends not only on their novelty and their price, but also on commercial and social contexts. Even as the price dropped and consumers began to believe in their safety, few families bought microwaves. It took an array of changes in business, social and cultural contexts to make that rented house seem peculiar.
But roasts were not the microwaved foods of the future. We may use the device to reheat homemade soup, but its ubiquity is based on the convenience of factory-made food. In 1979, Swanson (which already made the foil-wrapped TV dinner) announced a line of 14 frozen foods formulated and packaged for microwaving, including chicken in wine sauce and three breakfast items.
The company’s vice president compared it to color TV, which had “plodded along” at first but exploded after NBC went to all-color programming. But the takeoff depended as well on the development of refrigerated storage and shipping, supermarket freezer cases and home freezers that could store more than ice cubes. Microwaveable popcorn was yet to come, along with its high-tech packaging, which until 2016 contained chemicals now banned from food by the Food and Drug Administration.
Finally, during the mid-1980s, the price of microwave ovens began to drop as Japanese and Korean manufacturers entered the American market with devices that took less countertop space. By 1986, a quarter of American households owned microwaves.
By then, more than half of married women were employed full or part time, and nobody needed to ask why they would want timesaving technologies. Those numbers kept growing, and so did the proportion of microwaves; in 2009, they could be found in 96 percent of American homes.
But it wasn’t just working moms who used them. Just about anyone could follow instructions on the box. Even kids used microwaves: Most parents consider the device safer than open flames and hot burners, though medical journals described children burned by steam and hot food. And even people who disdained prepared foods used the office microwave to reheat leftovers brought from home.
As a 1979 home economics textbook pointed out, cooks could once multitask — feed the baby, set the table or make a salad while the main course was on the stove. But with a microwave, individual meals could be prepared one person at a time. Some families gave up on the idea that everybody had to eat together.
The family dinner still lives, according to a 2013 Harris Poll. Eighty-six percent of Americans residing with family members reported sitting down to dinner together at least once a week, 58 percent four times a week. But old people skew the statistics. Younger people eat together less and say they tried to get out of family dinners when they were kids.
Almost everybody said that togetherness was the essential aspect of the family dinner, but more than two-thirds still thought a home-cooked meal was important. This high standard speaks to the power of ritual, and of food.
These days, when politics looms large, it’s easy to disparage all else as trivial. But everything has a history. And though we think of domestic labor and family dinners as personal and private, the history of the microwave oven has everything to do with government regulation, employment statistics, war-related scientific research, foreign trade, municipal solid waste and public health.
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