You know that saying, "The greatest thing since sliced bread?" It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to those of us born in the last few generations since we've always had sliced bread, but the invention of the slicer sure had an impact on the world when it debuted 80 years ago.
The first loaf of pre-sliced bread was sold on July 7, 1928, but its inventor, Otto Rohwedder, had been working on it since 1912. Invention Dimension profiled Rohwedder, who was a jeweler until 1916 when he decided to work on this idea full time. The world would have been treated to sliced bread in 1917 if a fire hadn't destroyed the blueprints and prototypes at the factory set to produce the first bread slicers. Rohwedder didn't give up, though. He worked until he made up for those losses, and kept plugging away at perfecting his bread slicing machine. He sold the first one to a bakery in in Chillicothe, Mo., in 1928, and a star was born.
I think fate may have played a part in that 1917 fire, because it wasn't until 1926 that the electric pop-up toaster became popular in the US. Would sliced bread have caught on without the new toasting device? We'll never know, but they sure do go well together!
[via Coldmud]
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