Toasters
Getting toasted means applying radiant heat to something until the surface turns brown, sort of like what we California girls used to do by spreading baby oil all over our bodies and sitting in the summer sun to get toasted, roasted or baked until tan.
On the wall to the right of the fireplace are two wrought iron toasters from 1800s England, most likely used by women servants on their knees on a dirt floor dangling a piece of bread over a fire or a wood-burning stove to toast it for the “upstairs” crowd.
Two alloys were discovered in 1905 by Irishman Conor Neeson of Detroit, Michigan. His employer, William Hoskins of Chicago, invented Chromel, an alloy used in many electrical appliances. Two months after Hoskins got his patent in 1906, George Schneider of the American Electrical Heater Company in Detroit applied for one as well.
The same year, Albert Marsh discovered Nichrome, a nickel-chromium alloy that could stand roasting heat without melting or fusing. Alan MacMasters made the first electric bread toaster in Edinburgh, Scotland (seen here) and then Crompton, Stephen J. Cook & Co. of the UK sold a toaster called the Eclipse made of iron wire elements.
General Electric submitted technician Frank Shailor’s design for a Model D-12 toaster in 1909 and called it “the first commercially successful electric toaster.”
The next step in toaster evolution was Hazel Berger Copeman’s and Lloyd Groff Copeman’s toaster patent application for a “toaster that turns toast.” Previously, toasters cooked bread on one side and had to be flipped to cook the other side, just as people do with our bodies in the sun.
Charles Strite got the first automatic pop-up toaster patent in 1919 (seen here). Waters Genter Company redesigned Strite’s invention and introduced the first Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster in 1925, which browned the bread on both sides at once, had a timer heating element, and popped the toast out when toasted.
Just in time, Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer, and the first machine-sliced and machine-wrapped loaf of bread was sold on July 7, 1928 in Chillicothe, Missouri. In 1930 Continental Baking Company sold its first pre-sliced Wonder Bread.
Notice the Toast-O-Lator with its Spy-O-Lator window to watch the bread go by on little teeth like a conveyor belt. This fun but slow toaster was only made in 1948, and probably for good reason.
Don’t miss the round bun warmer.