Imagine my good luck while searching for prices on a new toaster. Instead I found Toaster.org, better known as The Cyber Toaster Museum. This non-profit organization is all about preserving and promoting toaster history.
So, naturally I needed to learn more about the site’s creator, which led me to founder Eric Norcross, who started the valuable archive in a former life as proprietor of a Seattle cafe/gallery. He’s moved on, but fortunately for all of us, his curatorial triumph lives on in both real and cyber space
Yes, that’s the really good news: Norcross’s collection of 500-plus actual toasters is now among the exhibits of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
Photo courtesy of Toaster.org
What I like best about Toaster.org’s approach is the experts’ obvious willingness to admit that toaster history is a fluid thing, subject to interpretation and rethinking:
Q. Who invented the toaster?
A. … There is evidence now that either an inventor at the Pacific Electric Heating Co. (later Hotpoint), someone at the Simplex Electric Co., or Hoskins Manufacturing came up with the first American electric toaster, but there is no known patent coverage so we don’t know the date or the person. And, we’ve heard rumors that there is an 1893 English toaster that was the very first electric, but we haven’t tracked down any info yet…
The toast historian adds:
“Of course, there was toast before electricity. The ancient Egyptians are credited with first making bread as we know it today (leavened, with natural yeast), and probably made the first toast by placing bread near fire.”
I’ve whiled away a good part of the morning learning ways to determine the value and vintage of my toaster, as well as care for it properly. I’m seeing it through new eyes now. I’m keeping it.
–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
