I learned something new from browsing through 1921 magazines. Did you know that string beans could be canned using a pressure cooker that long ago? I didn’t until I saw this photo and the accompanying article. Here’s what it said.
String Beans Canned in Pressure Cooker
Wash beans thoroughly, cut ends, and remove strings and cut as for the table. Dip in boiling water for two minutes, using a wire basket. Fill into cans, heat, and add boiling water and one teaspoonful of salt to each quart can of beans. Put on rubber ring and glass top. (Do not secure the top tight until after the cooking is done and the jar removed to cool.) Place on rack in pressure cooker, put on cover and process fifty minutes at 235 deg., eight pounds pressure.
American Cookery (August – September, 1921)
A Hundred Years Ago 
This brought back the memories. My mom canned green beans when I was a child, and I canned them as a young housewife. I was terrified of that pressure canner, though!
No canning at our house but my parents used a pressure cooker for pot roast. Kids were all warned to stay clear because it might explode.
Yep the green beans were very cooked! When my mother would do them she’d use the shelly beans – doing the pressure canning made them edible (just barely in my opinion). But then again I’m not a fan of green beans after I got food poisoning….
I never cared for the canned green beans, and my mom sort of gave up on them choosing to make dilly beans instead. However, these were definitely a pantry staple for so many who grew their own food, especially into the Depression.
Wow! That is a surprise!
Wonderful and interesting look into the kitchen one hundred years ago, Sheryl.
My mother was born in 1917 and she had very early memories of her parents pressure canning meat. She lived on a dairy farm. They had bottled gas in the room that the milk was pasteurized and that is where a small stove that was use to pressure can . They didn’t have electricity or natural gas yet and the house only had a wood stove. I think most canning at that time was water bath canning.
Interesting, but I wonder how much time it saved versus a hot water bath process. My grandmother blanched and froze all her vegetables, but her sisters gave her jars with green beans in them. They always looked so pretty on the pantry shelf.