Before and after the American Revolutionary War, French explorers were coming to the area we now know as Wisconsin. One of those people was a blacksmith named Joseph Jourdain. He and other blacksmiths used fire to heat metal so it could be shaped into tools like an iron toaster used to make toast over a fire.
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– Taylor Bailey: Oh, my gosh, no, you didn’t miss it.
I would never let you forget about National Toast Day!
I just got this new toaster, and I’m trying to make the perfect piece of toast.
– Well, I mean, making the perfect piece of toast is no easy feat!
– You’re telling me.
This is my second loaf already.
Do you ever wonder about how they used to make toast before they got all these fancy gadgets with all these bells and whistles and special settings?
– Wait.
Do you… Do you think that they lived toast-free lives?
That’s… That’s so sad.
[dreamy music] [dramatic old-timey music] [dreamy music] – I’m not sure that’s how it worked, but now I’m kind of curious!
How did they make toast before electric toasters?
– I’m not sure, but I think I know someone who can help us.
– Okay, let’s go!
– Uh… Leave the bag.
Take the toast.
[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [television static] – Taylor: Hi!
– Beth: Hello!
– Thanks for having us!
– This place looks great.
There are so many artifacts everywhere.
But we did come with something in mind.
We were hoping you could help teach us about toasters.
– It might be something that we might be able to investigate and take a look at.
Why don’t we head on over this way?
– Taylor: Okay, cool!
– I mean, it looks like it’s metal.
It looks like it’d be kind of heavy.
– Yeah, it looks like someone would use it for branding.
– I feel like it could be, like, a weapon!
[metal clanking] – Oh.
– It’s got these two arches, but then these smaller bits in the middle.
– Yeah, I’m wondering what the small pieces in the middle are for.
– Well, let’s ask an expert.
What are we looking at?
– We are looking at a toaster.
– A toaster?
– A toaster?
– Believe it or not, it is a toaster that a blacksmith made for his daughter previous to her marriage, about 1823.
– So, this predates Wisconsin as a state?
– Correct, correct.
– So, what was Green Bay like in the 1820s?
– Very much a wilderness.
People have lived in this area for a lot longer than we can possibly imagine.
Evidence of thousands of years.
– In the 1820s when this non-electric toaster was made, Wisconsin wasn’t even a state yet!
The area was still part of the Michigan territory.
In 1836, a section of the territory was split off to form the Wisconsin territory, which later became the state of Wisconsin in 1848.
This toaster was probably made by Joseph Jourdain, a French-Canadian blacksmith who moved to Green Bay in 1798.
Being a blacksmith is a skilled job, and it means that you create a lot of things out of metal.
[ding] – The toaster is made from wrought iron.
What in the world is wrought iron?
Well, iron is a type of metal.
Wrought, the first word, is a really old-fashioned form of the word worked.
In this sense, it means worked by hand or by hammering.
So, wrought iron means iron that could be worked into shape through hammering.
And that’s what a blacksmith does!
The metal is heated up to make it softer, and then hammered to form the shape.
This takes a lot of work, heating and hammering over and over again.
But for thousands of years, this was how lots of metal objects like this toaster were made.
[water hissing] So, this looks really different from the toasters that we use today.
How do you even use this?
How does it work?
– Absolutely.
So first of all, I can’t even imagine making bread in the 1820s, [both laughing] and doing all of that.
Again, just gathering all the materials, and it’s just, today it’s so much easier to go to the store and just buy what we need to.
But obviously, the family would have to make their bread source, and then the pieces of bread would go into each of these sides, so…
I’m gonna turn it so you can see a little bit easier, where the bread would sit into the hold and be held into place.
And then this, it would be able to then go towards the fire source, so an open fire, where then again, the handle and the distance would allow you to get close, get it toasted on one side, and then turn it around and get the other side toasted.
I’m sure it was trial and error, [Kacie and Taylor laughing] just like setting a dial on our current-day toasters, you’re always are like, “What?
How well-done do you like it to be?”
– Oh, wow.
So it’s kind of like you’re making s’mores, but with bread.
– Beth: Exactly.
– Using this kitchen tool may not be as easy as putting a Pop-Tart in the toaster, but it’s still pretty straightforward, and the design makes it more convenient than a toasting fork, which was a long fork that people stuck bread onto to toast over a fire.
How was this an improvement on the toasting fork?
Well, with a toasting fork, you have to touch the hot bread to take it off once one side has been browned.
Then, turn it around so the other side can get toasted.
But with the swiveling iron toaster, you didn’t need to take the toast off to flip the sides for browning.
You just spun the end part around.
Pretty neat, huh?
What can you tell me about his daughter?
– This was created for his daughter in the 1820s.
Her name was Madeline, and in 1823, she marries a gentleman named Eleazer Williams.
Eleazer Williams comes from New York State.
He is an Episcopalian minister, and he brings with him in that early time in the late 1815-1820 range, a group of Oneida Nation members to Wisconsin.
And so, he comes here by the 1820s, and 1823, ends up marrying Madeline, and they have a family together.
[oven door squeaking] – Do you ever wonder what people ate in different eras?
We did.
Luckily, there are cookbooks from the period that show us!
One early American cookbook is American Domestic Cookery, published right around the time this toaster was made.
We were able to find a copy online at the Library of Congress website, and even found a toast recipe.
The recipe mixes egg yolks, butter, and cheese, which you then spread over toast as a topping and bake in the oven.
– In the area of Green Bay where this toaster is from, there were a lot of French Canadians.
This probably meant a lot of French-Canadian recipes.
For example, pain perdu, or what we call French toast!
That was made with stale bread, dipped in egg and fried in oil or butter.
And what goes better with French toast than maple syrup?
Which Native peoples in this area had been making for centuries.
Yum!
– So, what did you think of our visit to the museum?
– I thought it was really cool.
I mean, to see how the toaster worked, and how it swiveled to get both sides of the bread toasted, that was really cool!
I thought that was innovative.
– I mean, I thought it was so interesting that this was custom-made for their wedding.
– And honestly, I would not be opposed to getting a nice toaster as a wedding gift, or any gift.
– I’ll keep that in mind.
Toast is a food that people have been enjoying for centuries!
But people in Wisconsin haven’t been living on bread alone all these years.
Immigrants coming to the state have brought with them a whole variety of food traditions, and there have been food traditions of Native peoples here since long before it was even a state.
See if you can find out some classic Wisconsin foods that people have eaten over the years.
Or, find out if your classmates and friends have foods that are important to them and their culture.
Try to find out as much as you can, and make sure you leave room for dessert.
[Kacie gasping] How about a little historical gossip?
Luckily there are cookbooks from the period that show us!
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