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| An early single slice Toastmaster. |
It took a few years,
but American breakfast tables were
on their way to being revolutionized when Charles
P. Strite filed his application for a patent on the electric pop-up toaster on May 29, 1919.
Toasting bread to
preserve it by removing moisture dated back to Roman times. In the 19th Century various devices were
invented to hold slices of bread over an open flame for toasting. But it was a tricky process requiring
diligence and constant attention and a lot of bread simply went up in
flames.
In the 1890’s inventors
in England and the United States patented similar devices
that toasted bread over heated electrical wires one side at a time. The devices were crude, expensive, and
dangerous since the glowing filaments were openly exposed. They also frequently failed or burst into
flame because the temperature to toast bread—better than 350º Fahrenheit—caused
filaments in the air to melt or ignited near-by combustibles.
The discovery of a
strong nickel-chromium alloy by Albert
Marsh made modern electrical toasters practical. George Schneider of the American
Electrical Heater Company soon patented a toaster using Marsh’s alloy. There was a race among dozens of companies to
produce practical toasters.
In 1909 the General Electrical Company’s Frank Shailor
patented what would become the first really successful devise, the D-12 Toaster. In 1914 Lloyd and Hazel Copeman perfected a toaster that could “flip” the bread to
face the heating filaments without having to touch it by hand. Competing companies had to either license the
Copeman patents for the Automatic
Toaster—as did Westinghouse—or
find new ways to expose both sides to heat.
Dozens of different
devices were introduced, but none were really satisfactory until Strite, a
master mechanic at a Stillwater,
Minnesota plant got tired of burnt toast in the company cafeteria. Tinkering away, he used a mechanical timer
and springs to create a toaster that would “pop-up” a slice when it reached the
correct heat to brown the bread. He was
granted his patent in 1921 and founded the Waters-Genter
Company to manufacture and market the toasters to restaurants.
Originally assembled by
hand, they were far too expensive for home use.
The first 100 were sold to the Childs
restaurant chain. By 1926 the
company improved production techniques and redesigned the machine for home use
under the brand name Toastmaster. After 1938 he chrome sides of the toasters were
etched with a triple loop logo meant to resemble the heating filaments
inside. The Edison Company eventually absorbed the Toastmaster brand. Through various owners the name and basic
design have continued to be marketed to this day.
Toastmaster toasters
and other appliances were manufactured in a plant in Algonquin, Illinois in McHenry
County until the 1990’s. Now all
products are produced offshore, mostly in China.
Although popular, it
took another invention to really send sales through the roof and make the
toaster a center piece of every home kitchen.
Bread was sold through
local bakeries in whole loaves. It had
to be hand sliced at home to be put in the toaster. As anyone who has ever tried it can attest,
it takes a very sharp knife and some skill to slice white bread to a proper thickness without either mashing the loaf
or sawing it to crumbs. Which is why
prior to 1930 most people probably had biscuits or cornbread with breakfast
than toast. But in 1928 Otto Frederick Rohwedder patented an
automatic bread slicing machine that also wrapped and sealed the sliced loaf in
protective waxed paper.
In 1930 the Continental Baking Company introduced Wonder Bread and within just three
years pre-sliced bread outsold whole loaves across the country. With perfectly formed slices, sales of
Toastmaster toasters skyrocketed as well.
The rest, as they say
is history. Pass the butter and jam
please.
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