A common saying to describe a useful and innovative new invention is often “The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread.” It’s an apt reflection of pre-sliced bread’s popularity when it was first introduced in the early twentieth century. Consumers grew to love it so much that they refused to give it up during World War II.
The Invention of Sliced Bread
While bread has been around for about 14,000 years, the Industrial Revolution changed the market rapidly. Americans were now buying their bread rather than baking it at home. But fresh commercial bread with its “squeezable softness” was much harder to cut neatly than homemade bread.https://www.heritagebanknw.com/home/home
Otto Frederick Rohwedder introduced the first loaf-slicing machine in Chillicothe, Missouri, in 1928. It quickly became a best seller. Bakers protested that sliced loaves fell apart and went stale quickly because the bread contained no preservatives. Consumers didn’t care and started buying more bread than before.
Tacoma Bakeries Start Slicing Bread
The Federal Bakery was Tacoma’s first commercial bakery to produce pre-sliced bread. “Now in Tacoma!” their first ad in the July 15, 1929, issue of the News Tribune declared. It was their same “Federal” milk bread at the same price, they assured customers, just conveniently cut into waste-free slices. Available at six Tacoma groceries, they also continued baking whole loaves.
The bakery’s pre-sliced bread proved popular, and other local bakeries wanted a slice of the market. “In keeping with modern methods,” a February 23, 1932, Daily Ledger ad announced, “AY [American Youth] now comes sliced as well as whole loaf. For those who prefer the convenience of a ready-sliced loaf, AY combines quality with economy, for it is exactly the same fine bread as the famous whole loaf.”
Sold primarily at Safeway, the regional grocery chain replaced AY with Julia Lee Wright’s Bread a few years later. Promoted as a “woman’s recipe,” it always came “ready-cut.”
As local brands vied with each other to be Tacoma’s favorite bread, they also had to contend with outside competition. The foremost of these was the makers of “Wonder Bread,” the Continental Baking Co. Setting up production at 701 South Sprague Street, this company began selling pre-sliced bread to local stores in 1931.
Tacoma Bakers Go to War
While bread was not rationed during World War II, its production was strictly controlled. And in 1943, the government decided to ban pre-sliced bread. This would save metal for the knives used to cut bread, as well as save wrapping paper and wax. Pre-sliced loaves needed more packaging than whole loaves to keep them from falling apart. Bakers were also told to limit color on labels to save ink.
The public, usually accepting government restrictions in the name of winning the war, immediately protested. Bakers and restaurant owners warned that the new rules would end up wasting bread and raising already skyrocketing food prices. Employees cutting bread by hand would waste worker time and be unsanitary.
Officials dismissed their protests. The ban on pre-sliced bread went into effect on January 18. It was to last “for the duration.”
It didn’t.
The News Tribune ran an article on January 17, 1943, the day before the ban went into effect. “Hone Your Big Knife,” the title went, “Sliced Bread Out Monday.” The paper assumed that most readers had forgotten how to slice bread. Alongside pictures of Tacomans struggling to slice bread, home bakers offered tips and tricks.
But even this article was skeptical about how the ban could help win the war. Mrs. William Hartle, mother of five-year-old triplets and an avid home baker, thought that soft commercial bread was too difficult for people to slice well, leading to waste.
Tacoma News Tribune editors were skeptical of the ban as well. “We have been hearing a lot about new and potent weapons, both among the Axis and [Allies],” read an editorial published January 17, “Perhaps the bread knife in the home will be the American weapon to win the war.”
Other writers tried to find the funny side of things. H.I. Phillip, writing in his “The Once Over” column in the February 12, 1943, News Tribune, joked that “Ima Dodo announces that she is keeping perfectly neutral in the war over pre-sliced bread. ‘I don’t wish to take sides,’ she says, ‘and am eating rolls.”
Wartime Tacoma Wanted Sliced Bread
Even as consumers were watching their fingers as they sliced bread at home, restaurants won the first battle over sliced bread.
While Hotel Winthrop and several large Tacoma restaurants dusted off power slicers from storage, other restaurant owners tried to buy retail-size slicers from bakers. But the bakers, however, weren’t interested. With price tags from $200 to $4,000, they wanted to save their machinery until they were allowed to use it again.
The government heard restaurant owners’ complaints and relented after only two weeks. Bakers could now sell pre-sliced bread to restaurants until March 18.
But by the time March rolled around, the government decided to completely lift the unpopular ban. The paper and wax situation was better now, they claimed.
The ban lasted less than two months. Tacoma joined the national rejoicing. “Sliced Bread Back Again in all Safeway Stores,” a News Tribune ad declared jubilantly on March 12, 1943. “What joy not to have to slice bread!” a Wonder Bread ad agreed on another page.
Sliced bread’s part of the American diet was finally secure, and it hasn’t lost its place since. Small wonder that we still call sliced bread “the greatest thing!”
