Electric stove

[citation needed] On September 20, 1859, George B. Simpson was awarded US patent #25532 for an 'electro-heater' surface heated by a platinum-wire coil powered by batteries.

[1] Canadian inventor Thomas Ahearn filed patent #39916 in 1892 for an "Electric Oven,"[2] a device he probably employed in preparing a meal for an Ottawa hotel that year.

[4] The electric stove was showcased at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where an electrified model kitchen was shown.

[5] In November 1905, David Curle Smith, the Municipal Electrical Engineer of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, applied for a patent (Aust Patent No 4699/05) for a device that adopted (following the design of gas stoves) what later became the configuration for most electric stoves: an oven surmounted by a hotplate with a grill tray between them.

The entire production run was acquired by the electricity supply department of Kalgoorlie Municipality, which hired out the stoves to residents.

[8] To promote the stove, David Curle Smith's wife, H. Nora Curle Smith (née Helen Nora Murdoch, and a member of the Murdoch family prominent in Australian public life), wrote a cookbook containing operating instructions and 161 recipes.

Thermo-Electrical Cooking Made Easy, published in March 1907, is therefore the world's first cookbook for electric stoves.

[13] Eventually, composite heating elements were introduced, with the resistive wires encased in hollow metal tubes packed with magnesite.