Background
Rohwedder was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1880, the son of Claus and Elizabeth Rohwedder, of ethnic German descent.
Rohwedder was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1880, the son of Claus and Elizabeth Rohwedder, of ethnic German descent.
He attended Davenport public schools. Rohwedder also studied optometry, graduating in 1900 with a degree in optics from what is now the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago.
lieutenant was first used by the Chillicothe Baking Company. Rohwedder and his family lived in Davenport, where he resided until the age of 21. Then he became an apprentice to a jeweler to learn a trade.
He became a jeweler.
Rohwedder first had a brief career as a jeweler, and became the owner of three jewelry stores in Saint Joseph. He used his work with watches and jewelry to invent new machines. Convinced he could develop a bread slicing machine, he sold his jewelry stores to fund the development effort and manufacture the machines.
In 1917 a fire broke out at the factory where Rohwedder was manufacturing his machine.
lieutenant destroyed his prototype and blueprints. With the need to get funding again, Rohwedder was delayed for several years in bringing the bread slicer to market.
In 1927 Rohwedder successfully designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but wrapped lieutenant The first loaf of sliced bread was sold commercially on July 7, 1928.
Sales of the machine to other bakeries increased and sliced bread became available across the country.
Gustav Papendick, a baker in Saint Louis, Missouri, bought Rohwedder"s second machine and found he could improve on lieutenant He developed a better way to have the machine wrap and keep bread fresh. He also applied for patents for his concepts.
In 1930 Continental Baking Company introduced Wonder Bread as a sliced bread.
lieutenant was followed by other major companies when they saw how the bread was received. By 1932 the availability of standardized slices had boosted sales of automatic, popular-up toasters, an invention of 1926 by Charles Strite.
In 1933 American bakeries for the first time produced more sliced than unsliced bread loaves. That same year Rohwedder sold his patent rights to the Micro-Westco Company of Bettendorf, Iowa and joined the company.
He became vice-president and sales manager of the Rohwedder Bakery Machine Division.
Rohwedder died in Concord, Michigan on November 8, 1960. He was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Albion.