{"id":18344,"date":"2011-09-16T10:33:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T15:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=18344"},"modified":"2013-11-09T05:57:07","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T10:57:07","slug":"the-evolution-of-the-easy-bake-oven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/09\/16\/the-evolution-of-the-easy-bake-oven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution of the Easy Bake Oven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Hasbro announced a new model of the Easy Bake Oven designed in response to the growing efficiency of light bulbs. \u00a0This sounded to me like a perfect opportunity to bring back our post on the evolution of the toy. \u00a0You’ll see the new model at the end. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

My niece got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas this year and I was shocked.\u00a0 Shocked!<\/p>\n

No, not because of gendered gift giving, socialization, blah blah blah… (I don’t know where you would get that idea). \u00a0Instead, I was shocked by what cooking apparently looks like in 2009.\u00a0 But let me start at the beginning…<\/p>\n

The first Easy Bake Oven was released by Hasbro in 1963 (history here<\/a>).\u00a0 It looked like a range with a stove top and an oven<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"6a00d83452989a69e200e5503ce76d8833-800wi\"<\/p>\n

It looked like this, with minor changes in color and amenities, for a while.<\/p>\n

1964<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"64\"<\/p>\n

1971<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"71\"<\/p>\n

Then, 1978.\u00a0 It turns out, in 1975, for the first time, sales of microwave ovens exceeded those of gas ranges<\/a>.\u00a0 And, what do you know, the Easy Bake Oven was suddenly a microwave with a digital clock<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"78\"<\/p>\n

1983<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"83\"<\/p>\n

Presumably, between 1963 and 1978, what cooking looked like changed dramatically and the evolution of the Easy Bake Oven reflected that.\u00a0 This is what surprised me when I saw my niece’s oven.<\/p>\n

Ironically, this year’s Oven is painted in the original turquoise, as a nod to 1963, but it is still clearly a microwave:<\/p>\n

\"easyBake\"<\/p>\n

2011<\/a>: Commercially available light bulbs are no longer inefficient enough to bake goodies. \u00a0This year’s model, then, is actually a real oven, reaching temperatures up to 375 degrees:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So that’s technological and socioeconomic change as signified by the Easy Bake Oven.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday Hasbro announced a new model of the Easy Bake Oven designed in response to the growing efficiency of light bulbs. \u00a0This sounded to me like a perfect opportunity to bring back our post on the evolution of the toy. \u00a0You’ll see the new model at the end. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 My niece got an Easy Bake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,55,2099,253,1711,290,23705],"class_list":["post-18344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-foodagriculture","tag-gender","tag-gender-childrenyouth","tag-history","tag-toysgames","tag-sciencetechnology","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18344"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58693,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18344\/revisions\/58693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}