The toaster is a very reliable kitchen appliance used for toasting various kinds of bread. With the help of this electric device, you can easily enjoy nice tasting bread anytime you want. Today, toasters are classified into three major varieties, namely conveyors, ovens and pop-up toasters. It is good to find out more about this useful electric appliance including who invented the toaster.
The Invention of the Toaster
Who invented the toaster? George Schneider, who once worked for the American Electrical Heater Co. in Detroit, was the very first to apply for an electronic toaster patent application in the United States, which happened some time around 1893 to 1900. In 1909, General Electric applied a patent for its GE model D-12, which became the very first successful commercial electronic toaster. Its design was credited to a technician named Frank Shailor.
Additional Facts and Other Important Information
In 1913, a major advancement in electronic toasters took place when American inventor Lloyd Groff Copeman applied a number of patents for his creation. His invention allowed both sides of a bread to toast even without touching it. Aside from this breakthrough, he was also credited for inventing the very first ice cube tray made from rubber as well as the electric stove. After that, toasters received another improvement when the semi-automatic variant was launched. This product automatically turned off once the bread toasted.
In 1921, American inventor Charles Strite came up with the very first automatic pop-up toaster. Unlike earlier models, the toasted bread ejects automatically. After that, the Waters Genter Co. launched the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster in 1925, which toasted both sides of the bread simultaneously. By 1946, ultramodern chrome designs were launched. In 1950, product models like the T-50, T-35 and T-20 were released, all of which featured automatic toast raising as well as lowering.
In the past years, numerous efforts were made for the enhancement of toaster technology. John Romkey and Simon Hackett designed the Internet Toaster some time in 1990, which was a high technology device controllable from the Internet. Meanwhile, Brunel University’s Robin Southgate designed a toaster that offers a weather prediction in 2001. Add to that, embedded systems hardware vendor Technologic Systems created a toaster that made use of the NetBSD Unix-like operating system in 2005.
It seems that more and more advanced features are being added to the electric toaster. Some of the latest additions include cool and convenient features such as the single-side heating mode. Likewise, recent models are capable of toasting even frozen breads. Moreover, new products have wider toasting slots, which can toast thick breads and bagels.