Tracing History: Vintage Hand Mixer and Egg Beaters

 

Hand-operated rotating egg beaters were invented before 1860, but it was unclear what the best design for the job would be. Inventors devised a number of labor-saving egg whisking techniques. The first spinning vintage hand mixer and egg beaters were most likely an American innovation copyrighted in 1856 and patented in England by Griffiths' Whisk in 1857. A completely new egg-beater was invented in 1849.

Rotating beaters with a handle were always the best, although they came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some of the first were attached to a pot and couldn't be used with the cook's preferred mixing bowl. Some were created by the same people that came up with the idea for miniature hand-cranked butter churns. Mechanical egg beaters were commonly the shape we know now by the 1880s. After being popularized by the Dover Stamping Company in the United States, they were dubbed Dover egg beaters. Starting with the Monroe vintage hand mixer and egg beaters, which were patented in the United States in 1859, the corporation obtained patents from a number of innovators. Soon after, George Kent, who also sold the Griffith, received a UK patent for this design, and it was built in London.

The 1856 patent, like others before it, stated how beneficial the new technology would be to hotels and restaurants, as well as ordinary households looking to speed up a time-consuming and exhausting task. However, some customers may have been swayed against the new egg beaters by cooking professionals who were skeptical of new technology. By the 1890s, the Dover egg beater had become well-known in the United States and was frequently featured in recipes and advertisements. Dover produced 4 million vintage hand mixer and egg beaters in the 20 years between 1870 and 1890. Although some people used rotary beaters in Victorian Britain, there is no evidence that they became widely used. They were promoted as one-minute or ten-second vintage hand mixer and egg beaters or with creative names like Biatrope or Archimedian because there was no well-known brand like Dover.