It seems like the most obvious pairing in the kitchen. If you have a can, you need a can opener. But history didn't work out that way. For decades, people bought canned food with no handy tool to open it.
Here's the short answer. Food was preserved in tin cans from at least 1772, and canning was patented in 1810. But the first can openers weren't patented until 1855 in England and 1858 in the United States. Early cans were thick and heavy, and people opened them with whatever tools they had. The gap may come down to simple economics: existing tools did the job, and developing a new one took time and money.
Cans Came First
The Dutch Navy was using food preserved in tin cans by at least 1772. Before 1800, the Netherlands had a small canned salmon industry. The fish was cleaned, boiled in brine, smoked, and packed into tin-plated iron boxes.
In 1810, Peter Durand patented the preservation of food in tin cans. Bryan Donkin acquired that patent and set up the world's first canning factory in London in 1813. By 1820, canned food was a familiar item in Britain and France, and by 1822 in the United States.
Hammer and Chisel Required
Those first cans were built tough. They were so sturdy that the container weighed more than the food inside. Opening one took some ingenuity.
The instructions on those early cans said it all: cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer. Imagine needing your toolbox just to get to dinner.
As canning became more mechanized during the 1800s, can walls got thinner. Even so, for years there was still no general-purpose can opener in sight.
The First Can Openers
In 1855, Robert Yeates, a maker of cutlery and surgical instruments in England, devised the first claw-ended can opener. It was a hand tool that hacked its way around the top of the can.
In 1858, Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut, patented an opener with a sharp sickle that was pushed into the can and sawed around the edge. The U.S. Army used it during the Civil War, but its exposed blade was too dangerous for home kitchens.
Some cans solved the problem themselves. In 1866, J. Osterhoudt patented the twist-key, a little key soldered onto the can. You snapped it off, slipped it into a tab, and rolled back a strip of metal. Sardine tins worked this way.
The Wheel That Won
The familiar rotating cutting wheel was first patented in 1870 by William Lyman of Meriden, Connecticut. But his design required stabbing the center of the can first, which was a nuisance, and it didn't last.
The real breakthrough came in 1925. The Star Can Opener Company of San Francisco added a second, serrated wheel that gripped the rim of the can. The design worked so well that it's still in use today. In 1931, the Bunker Clancey Company of Kansas City patented the first opener that gripped the can while cutting it, with the squeeze handles most of us know. Electric can openers arrived in the late 1950s.
So the next time you open a can of soup in a few easy turns, spare a thought for those early cooks with their hammers and chisels. Sometimes the obvious invention takes the longest to arrive.
