History of toasters-toaster history reviews

Prior to the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame and holding it over a fire or by holding it near to a fire using a long handled fork.

Utensils for toasting bread over open flames go back at least 200 years. Toasters for bread using electricity were invented by Crompton and Company, Leeds, England in 1893. The technology that makes electric toasters possible, a nichrome wire that can endure high heat, has existed for a long time. At least two other brands of toasters had been introduced commercially around the time GE submitted the first patent application for their model D-12 in 1909.

In 1913 Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various toaster patents and in that same year the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the toaster with automatic bread turner.  The company also produced the "toaster that turns toast." Before this, electric toasters cooked bread on one side and then it was flipped by hand to toast the other side. Copeman's toaster turned the bread around without having to touch it.  Copeman would later go on to invent the first electric stove and the flexible ice cube tray.

The pop-up toaster, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was patented by Charles Strite in 1919. In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite's toaster, the Waters Genter Company introduced the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster, the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, set the heating element on a timer, and eject the toast when finished.

More recent additions to toaster technology include the ability to toast frozen bread, automatic toast lowering with no lever to push, and a single side heating mode.

Significant ultramodern chrome designs were the Sunbeam T-9 "Half-Round", introduced in 1939, and the General Electric 139T81, produced in quantity from 1946, Some of the classic chrome designs from the 40's and 50's are now being reintroduced into the market.

Toasters and toast bread have recently drawn attention of modders whom modify toasters to print images and logos on bread slices.