FirstMention.com

exploring the history and origins of familiar people, places, things, words and phrases

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    Microwave Oven  

  
1954 
. 
   
You've got a microwave.  If you're over 40, you may even remember your family's first microwave oven showing up in your kitchen.
 
But when did the term microwave oven come into being?
 
The First Mention that I came across goes back to an article in the Wall Street Journal from June 2, 1954.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
The microwave oven described in the article was one of the items still in the experimental stage, but was just nearing its first commercial production.
 
A scant two years later, the oven was on the market -- mostly for commercial kitchens -- but was seen as the wave of the future, as this image from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times of January 22, 1956 so ably demonstrates.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

        

 

 For a larger version of this picture, click here.

 

 

 

 

 

Know of an earlier First Mention?   Drop me a line at david@firstmention.com