Who Invented the Toaster?

The answer to this burning question

They've been around forever. We use them all the time. But how much do we really know about toasters? How do they work, for instance? Who invented the technology that allows a toaster to work? Who had the first patent on toasters? When were they first introduced into the market? You might be surprised by some of the answers to these and other questions.

A brief history

In 1905 a man by the name of Albert Marsh developed the technology that makes electric toasters possible. It is this same basic principle that is still used in conventional toasters even today - a nichrome wire that conducts and sustains heat. Although GE submitted the first patent application for their D-12 model toaster in 1919, at least two other companies had toasters on the market around the same time.

The pop-up toaster

Although we take these handy devices for granted, it wasn't until 1919 that Charles Strite patented what we now know as the pop-up toaster; however, the toast had to be "popped up" manually. In 1925, the Waters Genter Company introduced the very first automatic pop-up toaster, the Toastmaster, using a redesigned version of the Strite model. Not only was the Toastmaster the first automatic pop-up toaster, but it could also brown bread on both sides at the same time, unlike the original Strite model, and worked on a timer that popped up the toast when it was finished heating.

Toaster evolution

Needless to say, toasters have evolved even further over the years since their inception. Recent breakthroughs in toaster technology allow you to toast frozen bread as well as other products, automatic toast lowering (eliminating the use of the lever), options that allow you to toast only a single side of the bread or bagel you are toasting, functions for reheating that allow you to warm up already toasted bread without burning it, and the ability to toast multiple slices of bread, aside from the regular two slices, at the same time. But perhaps the craziest invention came in 2001 from Brunel University in England, where Robin Southgate developed a toaster that could predict the weather (albeit simple predictions such as sunny or cloudy) by implementing a function that allows the toaster to dial a pre-coded number to get the weather forecast and then toasts the graphic on a piece of bread.

More information on toasters