QUESTION: While browsing at a recent Fall antique fair, I noticed an unusual object on one of the tables. It looked like an A-frame built of shiny steel and had an electric cord coming out of one end. The dealer said it was an early electric toaster. It seemed a bit dangerous looking to me and not at all sleek like the modern toasters of today. What can you tell me about this old toaster? When was the toaster invented?
ANSWER: Indeed, those early toasters were mighty strange looking but to the people in the early 20th century, they were a godsend. No longer did they have to hold a slice of bread over an open flame or hot stovetop to toast it. Humans had been eating bread for over 6,000 years and toasting it over a fire for just as long.
But with the arrival of wood and coal stoves in the 1880’s, people needed a new toasting method. The very first toaster was an odd looking gadget, consisting of a tin plate to which was attached four triangular wire stands. The user placed a slice of bread within each of the wire stands, forming a pyramid of sorts. Then the user placed the device on a hot stove. The bread browned on one side at a time, making it necessary for the user to turn the toast before it burned.
Fire was the source of heat for toasting bread but the advent of electricity led engineer Albert Marsh to create a nickel and chromium composite called Nichrome in 1905. Toaster makers could easily shape this substance into wires or strips, plus it was low in electrical conductivity. Within months, other inventors were using Nichrome to produce electric toasters.
Original electric toasters consisted of a heating element and a stationary wire frame to hold the toast in place. Most were mounted on a porcelain base and posed a burn hazard to those charged with making breakfast. Toaster manufacturers in the 1920s added a protective case and a variety of clever mechanisms to automatically turn the bread for easy toasting on both sides.
There were five different toaster styles—the Turnover, the Flopper, the Swinger, the Sweetheart, and the Pop Up.
Each manufacturer attempted to create a slightly new design that did something the others could not. From this crazed period of innovation came designs and mechanisms like the Flopper. The Flopper featured metal doors with a fancy pierced design that also hinged on the bottom which formed an “A” when closed. When the toast was done, the operator opened the side doors, and the toast “flopped” out.
Swingers featured a swinging basket with a two-sided metal wire enclosure that held the bread slices. Users turned a knob to flip the slice of bread to the other side. It also branded the toast with a distinctive pattern, making it more attractive for the breakfast table. The first four-slice toaster was a swinger. It was so expensive that manufacturers offered convenient payment plans so consumers could afford it.
The Sweetheart worked by pressing two buttons located on the base of the toaster. The buttons controlled each side of the toaster. Depressing the buttons would swing the baskets on each side of the toaster out at a 90-degree angle, so the user could either place the bread in or remove the toast. Releasing the button allowed the basket to swing back into place against the unit. Each additional push of the buttons rotated the bread slices in the opposite direction to toast both sides.
In 1919, Minneapolis resident Charles P. Strite was working at the Waters-Genter Company plant in Stillwater. The factory’s cafeteria often served burnt toast. This inspired him to create a toaster that would toast bread automatically with minimal human intervention. He called his device the Toastmaster, for which he received a patent in 1921. The Toastmaster had heating elements that could toast both sides of a slice of bread at the same time. The device also had a timer that would turn off the heat and a spring that would eject the toast, eliminating the chance of burning. Strite’s invention found its way into restaurants immediately. By 1926, he introduced a home version with a variable timer that allowed the user to adjust the desired lightness or darkness of their toast.
Prior to 1926, manufacturers originally marketed and sold pop-up or automatic toasters to restaurants. They were a luxury for most families; so most manufacturers continued selling manual toasters for home well into the 1950s.
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