The "father" of sliced bread is Otto
Rohwedder, a former jewelry store owner. He had started work
on a slicing machine in 1912, and when bakers told him sliced
bread would go stale quickly, he developed an apparatus for holding
all of the slices together with hat pins. This wasn't too successful
as the pins continued to fall out.
An obvious solution would be a wrapper, but it was not that obvious
at the time. Wrapping, however, proved to be the key to success,
and in May, 1928, a Battle Creek, Michigan, bakery began turning
out the first sliced bread, using Rohwedder's newest slicer,
which also wrapped and sealed the loaf.
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Wheat
Bread Facts
In value of products, agriculture-related manufacturing predominated in 1909-10. The flour milling industry was by far the most productive, its 295 plants and 842 workers accounting for $19 million of the state's total $53 million industrial output. Exemplary was John Kroutil's Yukon Mill and Grain Company, begun in 1902, and Shawnee Milling Company, which began as a roller mill in 1906 (still in business). In 1891 Kingfisher had 12 flour mills. By 1950 38 flour mills operated in the state. (Oklahoma Historical Society Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture)
Red Dirt Groundbreaker: John Kroutil, Yukon
Miller
John Kroutil immigrated from Czechoslavakia with his parents
in 1881. The family first settled in Nebraska before coming
to Oklahoma Territory in 1890. John and his brother Frank purchased
the Yukon Mill and Grain Company in 1902.
Other Czechs had migrated to the young territory in the land
runs of the 1890s, north from Texas and south from Nebraska
and Kansas. Because many had been wheat farmers in their native
country, they grew wheat in the new land and were happy to
take their grain to the Kroutil brothers, where they could
do business in their native tongue.
Milling was an important industry in the early years of statehood.
In 1910 the flour milling industry was by far the most productive.
There were 295 plants and 842 workers. Total sales were $109
million of the state's $53 million industrial output. Yukon
Mill and Grain Company was among the most successful, along
with Shawnee Mills, owned by J. Lloyd Ford.
John Kroutil served as president of the Yukon Mill and Grain
Company until his death in 1954. In 1912, he and his brother
opened the Yukon National Bank. John Kroutil also served as
president of the Yukon Electric Company, which was formed in
1907 after a steam-powered electric generating plant was built
near the mill.
For his philanthropy and business leadership Kroutil was inducted
into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1933. On June 12, 1954, he
died of a heart attack on his farm near Piedmont.
More
Red Dirt Groundbreakers
Books
Levenson, George, Bread Comes to Life,
Tricycle, 2008. (Grades 1-3)
The story of wheat in a rhyming poem with excellent
photos. The baker sows the seed in his backyard and sowing
and threshing are done by hand rather than by modern methods.
Reed, Janet, Everyone Eats Bread,
Red Bricklearning, 2003. (Grades PreK-2)
Early reader with excellent photographs good
for teaching about culture and meeting human needs.
Taus-Bolstad, Stacy, From Wheat to Bread,
Lerner, 2002. (Grades PreK-3)
Treuille, Eric, Bread, DK, 2007.
(Grades 6-Adult)
Moves beyond the basics of how bread is made
and explains how cultures interpret bread and how bread impacts
culture. It explores a wide variety of bread from across the
globe and explains the characteristics of each and what its
name signifies.
More
Ag-Related Books for Children and Young Adults
