The adoption of the wood stove as an agent of material culture in Newfoundland: a historical geography

Abstract

This thesis examines the methods by which the Newfoundland population provided themselves with the warmth essential to survival, from the seventeenth century onwards. The provision of warmth was crucial to life on the island. It underlay all other activities and imposed its patterns on such fundamental geographical properties as the development of settlement and ecology. Two main components of creating this warmth were firewood from local forests and the cast iron stove, both of which are discussed here. Local forest resources were the staple fuel for much of the Newfoundland population. They were a fundamental component of seasonal work patterns and of the cashless subsistence economy. Three potential types of fuel wood shortages are identified, and the extent to which each may have occurred in Newfoundland is discussed. The adoption of the new technology of the cast iron stove is also examined, from its first appearance in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to its common acceptance in homes by 1870. A variety of sources contribute to a preliminary picture of the heating and cooking technology used, and of the utilization of fuel wood resources. These include such archival sources as merchant ledgers and local manufacturing records, as well as published sources like censuses and newspaper advertisements. This study also describes the decline in wood stove use during the twentieth century as other fuel options became available.