At the beginning of the 1950s the imagination of inventors was awakened.

Many gadgets were developed and many are still with us and used today. Many have been improved upon since but in the beginning they served a purpose for the everyday user.

To examine this process we have to take a very common object and find how it came about.

When the metal can was developed to preserve food, there was a need for a way to open the can. Thus came the invention of the can opener. No, not the one you use today. This was much more primitive. It was called a knife.

In the beginning using a knife was not a good solution and was not easy to use, an opener was designed that had a rotating cutting wheel. It too was difficult to use and so a second wheel was added. This became the little opener that I always thought looked like a bird sitting on the edge of the can. As an added bonus, it had a groove that was used to flip open bottles.

Another opener developed earlier looked like a hook and was pushed into the can and was sawed around the top of the can. This was deemed too dangerous for domestic use. We had one like it in our house.

The next design was a double wheel that was clamped on the topside of the can and a small lever was turned to make it rotate around the can. This was further improved with a pliers type handle with again the turning lever. These are still manufactured today and are usually found in camping gear.

For ease of use this can opener was adapted to be hung on the wall with a turning crank to open the can. We still have one on the wall of our pantry.

Another type of opener was given the nickname of the “Church Key.” One end is used to pierce the can and the other end was a bottle cap lifter. These were often used to open cans of evaporated milk, pop or juice cans.

In 1956 an electric opener and knife sharpener was introduced. It was free standing and stood on your kitchen counter. Some were telescoping to accommodate tall cans such as juice cans. Then the electric can opener followed the earlier wall hung opener to free up space on the kitchen counter.

One of the last items added to the opener was the little magnet that holds the lid from dropping in the can after it is cut loose from the can.

I am the kind of user that on occasion I let the lid drop into the can and have to fish it out with a knife and at other times I stop the opener and bend back the lid while it is still attached to the can. What kind of opener are you?

Do we really need an opener now at all?  Most cans have ring or flip tops.  Will the can opener become obsolete? I am going to keep my can openers. I have all of the above. Whose knows when the power may go out and my cans don’t have ring tops. Will we starve? No.

Some one is going to ask me how I can fill a whole article about can openers? Let me tell you, I have opened a can or two in my lifetime but not so much anymore. It’s more of opening the freezer bag and then I use scissors. Ah ha! A topic for a future article. Oh no.

 

Jo-Ann Boepple works at the Edwardsburg Area History Museum.