Daniel Thompson (inventor)
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Daniel Thompson (January 16, 1921 – September 3, 2015) was a Canadian-born American inventor and entrepreneur. Thompson was best known as the inventor of the first commercially viable bagel machine, which allowed for the mass production and mass marketing of the
bagel A bagel ( yi, בײגל, translit=beygl; pl, bajgiel; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. It is traditionally shaped by hand into a roughly hand-sized ring from yeasted wheat dough that is first ...
to a wider consumer market.


Early years

Daniel Thompson was born Abraham Thomas Thompson on January 16, 1921, in
Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...
, Canada. Within weeks of his birth, his parents changed his name to Daniel to honor a recently deceased cousin. While Thompson was still a child, his family moved to
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
, and his father set up a bakery in
Boyle Heights Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include: Disambiguation *Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...
. After graduating Fairfax High School, Thompson joined the
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
and served in the
Pacific Ocean theater of World War II The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. He then returned home to attend the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
and study Industrial Arts and Mathematics. After graduating, he became a teacher, working on his own inventions in his spare time. In 1953, his " Folding Table, Tennis Table, or the Like" was given a U.S. patent.


Bagel business

The bagel had been largely a Jewish specialty food item prior to Thompson's invention of the "Thompson Bagel Machine," which he began building in his garage in
Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles Cheviot Hills is a neighborhood on the Westside of the city of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1924, the neighborhood has served as the filming location of movies and television shows due to its convenient location between Sony Studios a ...
, in 1958. This popularized bagels and made them available to a wider consumer base.


Personal life

In 1946, Thompson married Ada Schatz. They had three children. Thompson died in
Palm Desert, California Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has bee ...
, of complications from a fall on September 3, 2015, at the age of 94.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Daniel 1921 births 2015 deaths American inventors Jewish American inventors Jewish American military personnel Canadian emigrants to the United States University of California, Los Angeles alumni People from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles People from Los Angeles 21st-century American Jews