Summary of Why It Was Illegal For 47 Days to Slice Bread in the US

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It was illegal for 47 days to slice bread in the United States because the small town of Chillicothe, Missouri was the first place in the world to have a commercial bread-slicing machine. The machine was invented by Otto Rohwedder and caused a lot of excitement when it was first introduced. People were not sure how to eat sliced bread, but eventually, it became the most popular bread in the country. The government made it illegal because they were afraid that Chillicothe would have a monopoly on bread-slicing machines.

• 00:00:00 This 1-paragraph summary explains why it was illegal for 47 days to slice bread in the United States. The small town of Chillicothe, Missouri was the first place in the world that saw the commercial use of a bread-slicing machine, and the local papers reported that the very idea was 'startling.' Otto Rohwedder, the guy who decided to combine the power of bread with the magic of slicing, had to take out full newspaper ads carefully walking people through the daunting steps of eating sliced bread, such as 'opening the wrapper at one end' and 'removing as many slices as desired.' Eventually, though, people got the hang of it, and sliced bread became the greatest invention since sliced bread—Wonderbread, the first major brand to start slicing their bread, soared in popularity, and by the early 1930s, only a few years after its invention, nearly 80% of all bread sold in the United States was pre-sliced. However, in 1943, the US made sliced bread illegal for 47 days because it was feared that the small town of Chillicothe, Missouri would become the first place in the world to have a commercial bread-slicing machine. When the OPA was forced to authorize a 10
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