Like all heroes, Otto Wohwedder’s story begins with tragedy. Wohwedder’s first prototype was destroyed in an inconvenient fire in 1917 (when are fires ever convenient?). But just like The Little Engine That Could, Otto kept going. By 1928, his newly-improved five-foot by three-foot machine was up and ready for release. Of his invention, Wohwedder said, “We are confident in the belief that the real possibilities of sliced bread have barely been scratched.”

Wohwedder’s machine, which was capable of slicing an entire loaf of bread in one fell swoop, could not have come at a more perfect time. The toaster was first invented 35 years earlier in 1893, but by 1925 toasters were already capable of turning toast and popping up all by themselves. Considering that bread in 1925 was only 10c/lb (a fraction of the price of a stick of butter at the time,) it’s no wonder that it was marketed as, “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.”

Despite a front page article in the local newspaper, the customer’s at Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, MO, Wohwedder’s first client, were apprehensive to commit to the change. Consumers thought that the sliced bread was “startling,” since sliced bread dried much faster than full loaves of bread. “Certainly it represents a definite departure from the unusual manner of supplying the consumer with baked loaves” (Time.) But fear not — Wohwedder, our trusty innovator, changed the bread industry yet again by creating U-Shaped pins that kept the bread loaf together to make it appear whole in its packaging (New York Times).