My Mother's Frigidaire Kitchen
At my mom's house we still have the amazing, beautiful and iconic Frigidaire stove/oven with the "swing up" glass doors and "fold away" electric burners-and it is still being used for cooking. It can't be matched by anything on the market today. I almost feel it still represents the future the way it did in 1964. If you have the opportunity to watch any of the television series Bewitched, it is the stove seen in the frequent kitchen scenes from 1964-1971. Our stove is a beautiful light blue...and the Frigidaire stove used in the Bewitched series is a lovely pale yellow. A true work of art, function, and the "Mark of Excellence" from General Motors! I feel very lucky to still have this in my family, and it brings back all of the rich memories of hours in the kitchen at home.
Also, my grandmother had a Frigidaire washing machine in the kitchen. Back then, this was common. It had the great agitator that "pumped" the clothes in an "up and down" motion, rather than "side to side.” I would love to somehow be able to find archived advertisements of that washer. There has been nothing like it again on the market. I believe this Frigidaire washing machine model was from 1958.
Thank you so much for allowing me to share these unique memories!
The stove/oven being referred to in this article was the 1960s Frigidaire Flair Range, which came in 4 models (40” or 30” widths) and modernized kitchens without remodeling. To install, all the owner had to do was slide the range into place. The optional cabinet (or the owner’s own cabinet) gave the range a built-in look.
The clear glass upper oven doors swung up and out of the way and if the consumer owned a Custom Imperial or Custom Deluxe there was an extra oven.
The "Roll to You" surface cooking top slid in and out by grasping the range handle and pressing down on the release knob behind the hand and sliding the cooking top forward. The cooking top would automatically lock when the release knob was released. “In” to put units away when done cooking, “Half out” for 2-unit cooking and “Out” for 4-unit cooking. The Automatic Safety Shut-Off turns off all surface unit when the cooking top is fully or halfway closed and the owner never had to wait for the unit to cook before closing.