Otto Frederick Rohwedder

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Otto Frederick Rohwedder (July 7, 1880, Des Moines, Iowa–November 8, 1960, Concord, Michigan), who grew up in Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first automatic bread-slicing machine.

The so-called father of sliced bread realized around 1912 that if he were to develop a successful machine for automatically slicing bread it would need to prevent the bread from going stale. His initial prototype designs held the bread firmly together with metal pins and was unsuccessful. In 1927 he designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but also wrapped it. The first machine was sold to Frank Bench and installed at the Chillicothe Baking Company, in Chillicothe, Missouri in 1928 and the first loaf of sliced bread was sold on July 7, 1928.

[edit] Personal life

Rohwedder was born in Davenport, the son of Claus and Elizabeth Rohwedder. He was the youngest of three brothers and one sister.

Rohwedder lived in Davenport until the age of 21, attending Davenport public schools and then becoming an apprentice to a jeweler. He then graduated in 1900 with a degree in optics from the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology in Chicago.