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Alan MacMasters was not the inventor of the electric toaster: the attribution was a prank that, according to Hackaday, spread from Wikipedia into books and other public-facing sources. The episode is a useful reminder that repetition can make a claim look established without providing independent evidence for it.
Was Alan MacMasters really the inventor of the electric toaster?
No. Hackaday’s account says the claim that Scottish engineer Alan MacMasters invented the electric toaster began as a joke on Wikipedia. The article reports that the attribution later appeared in books and on the Scottish government’s Brand Scotland website. It also describes a school event honoring MacMasters and a television program featuring a dessert named for him. These are examples reported by Hackaday, not a measured tally of how widely the claim circulated.
The joke gained credibility in part because readers encountered it in places that could seem authoritative. But a book, website or broadcast repeating a claim does not necessarily confirm it independently. If later sources trace back to the same unsupported assertion, repetition is not corroboration.
How did the toaster hoax begin?
The Wikipedia prank
Hackaday traces the story to 2012. A university lecturer had warned students against citing Wikipedia and reportedly told them that a friend had entered his own name as the toaster’s inventor. MacMasters and friends then decided to replace that name with MacMasters’s as a joke.
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- 2-slice toaster for toasting 1 or 2 slices of bread at a time
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- Bagel setting for toasting just the cut side; Frozen setting for defrosting bread; Cancel function ends the session at any time; buttons illuminate to indicate selected settings
- Extra-lift lever for safely removing smaller pieces
How the joke became harder to spot
The prank faded from the group’s attention. In 2013, MacMasters created a fuller Wikipedia article about himself, including a doctored image. Hackaday says a schoolboy noticed that the image looked fake; his concern led to an investigation and the article’s deletion.
That sequence illustrates how a claim can outlive the context that explains it. Once separated from its origin as a joke, the assertion could be copied and encountered as if it were a factual biographical detail.
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Who does Hackaday identify as connected to an early toaster patent?
Hackaday’s account identifies American Frank Shailor as the person who filed a patent in 1909 on behalf of General Electric. It also cautions that the patented appliance was not like a toaster most people would recognize today. This is Hackaday’s historical correction; the primary patent record has not been independently verified here, so the detail should not be treated as a primary-source-checked conclusion.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to check a claim that appears in several places
- Find the earliest identifiable source. Look for who first made the claim and when, rather than relying on the latest page that repeats it.
- Check the provenance. Ask whether a source points to a document, record or named expert, or simply repeats another account.
- Look for independent corroboration. Several sources that all derive from one claim do not amount to several separate confirmations.
- Give greater weight to credible, identifiable sources. Consider who is responsible for the information and what evidence they provide.
Hackaday’s Al Williams captures the responsibility involved: “The responsibility that comes with that is that we have to be critical consumers of information.”
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