Otto Rohwedder's bread-slicing machine was nearly a lost cause. According to the National Museum of American History, a fire destroyed his prototype; he faced funding issues more than once, and it took him about sixteen years to find someone to install a working model in a bakery. The museum notes that the machine began working in 1928, and a year later, bakeries struggled to keep up with demand. Pre-sliced bread is now so ordinary that it is easy to forget how new the convenience once was. People once had to slice bread by hand, and it took years of development to make pre-sliced loaves practical.
Sixteen years, one fire, and a machine that finally worked
