What do you think of this fact?
Cotton candy is basically sugar and air, and not exactly a gift to your teeth. Which makes it even stranger who helped invent the machine for it. One of the two inventors was a dentist.
A dentist and a confectioner
In 1897, two men in Nashville, Tennessee, teamed up: William J. Morrison, a dentist, and John C. Wharton, a confectioner. Together they built a machine that melts sugar and spins it into ultra-thin threads. According to History Hit, Morrison had graduated as a dentist in Tennessee in 1890. Instead of steering clear of sugar, he looked for a way to mass-produce spun sugar. Shortly after, the pair patented their invention.
The principle hasn’t changed. The sugar is heated and melted in the center of the machine, then the spinning flings it outward through tiny holes. In the air it cools instantly into fine threads, which get wound up on a stick.
The big debut in 1904
The treat really took off at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Back then it was called “fairy floss”. According to Britannica, nearly 70,000 boxes were sold there, while History Hit puts it at more than 60,000 portions. A box cost 25 cents, which according to Britannica was half the price of admission to the fair.
The name “cotton candy” came later. According to Britannica, it was coined in the 1920s by Josef Lascaux, who was also a dentist, this time from Louisiana.
According to Britannica, the machine even won a prize at the 1904 fair for novelty of invention.
Dentists with a sweet tooth
Two dentists shaping the history of cotton candy sounds like a contradiction, but it’s well documented. Nobody would have dared to make up that punchline.
Sugar, air and a dash of irony: that’s all it takes to make a fairground classic.