Maine Memory Network

Gradually, consumers saw the benefits of electricity and expanded their use of home power. Electric ovens replaced those that burned wood.

Toasters could be plugged in instead of rotated over a fire. Electric washing machines agitated clothing and linens to clean them, replacing beating, pounding, or hand churning.

Like their non-electric predecessors, the first electric toasters had no moving parts. The bread was simply perched next to the heating element, and operating required care and attention in timing the cooking process as well as in not burning one’s fingers while turning the bread.

Inventors soon came up with a number of methods for holding and turning the bread slices, adding spring-loaded doors to hold the bread in place, swinging frames to turn the slices around, or allowing the slice of toast to flip end-over-end when the doors of the Westinghouse Turn-Over Toaster were opened.