Angelus-Campfire electric Bar-B-Q marshmallow toaster
date: label: date made
content: ca 1930
name: label: maker
content: Angelus-Campfire Co.
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Most people adopted electricity so they could have electric lighting. But once they brought the wires into their homes and businesses, they found other uses for this flexible and clean (at the point of use) form of energy. Cooks and bakers liked the fact that electricity did away with the need for fire wood and other fuels in the kitchen that smoked and created fumes and ashes. Utility companies, wanting to expand the use of electricity beyond lighting, offered small cooking appliances like hot plates, waffle irons, mixers, and coffee pots.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Not all such appliances caught on with consumers. Around 1930, the Angelus-Campfire Company, a maker of marshmallows, decided to sell a small, electric marshmallow toaster to boost demand for their product. Like many appliances of that era, this toaster was not designed to be hidden away in a kitchen, but was meant to be used in front of guests. The marshmallows would be nice and warm, and the host could show that they could afford the latest technology. The toaster originally cost $1.25. It seems this particular appliance failed in the marketplace, but it is a fun example of early attempts to adopt electric power to everyday life.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The object is a small metal cube set on two legs fashioned from steel wire. A ceramic insulator is set in the bottom, above which is mounted a heating coil made of nickel-chromium (Ni-chrome) wire. A perforated metal basket nests inside the cube to protect the coil from melting food, and has slots along the top edge for metal forks that hold the marshmallows. A 2-prong plug on one side connects to a power cord that has a built-in switch. Ni-chrome wire was a key invention for toasters and space heaters since the alloy could withstand repeated heating and cooling cycles without melting.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: Exhibition
content: Lighting a Revolution
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Samuel F. Hunter
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.330776
label: catalog number
content: 330776
label: accession number
content: 297385
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Marshmallow Toaster
label: Object Name
content: electric kitchen appliance
label: Other Terms
content: Marshmallow Toaster; Appliances
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 in x 5 1/4 in x 3 in; 10.16 cm x 13.335 cm x 7.62 cm