"the mixer America grew up with"°

"The Only Low-Priced Food Mixer That Does All These Things..."As Dennis Thompson' Antique Electric Mixers notes, Rufus W. Eastman received the first known patent for an electric mixer in 1885--an intriguing machine designed to run on either electric or water power. Another early electric mixer was designed and patented by psychologist/ergonomist Lillian Gilbreth°° And, in 1911, a year after the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company introduced the Sunbeam Princess iron, L.H. Hamilton, Chester Beach, and Fred Osirus patented their first electric mixer--a single-whip, rounded-motor machine mounted on a straight iron stand attached to a porcelain platform, with an inbuilt electric plug (the motor contained it, and it plugged into a port on the stand itself) and a spring-loaded starter (you pushed the motor down into the jar or cup to run the mixer; the motor stopped when you released the spring to lift it back up). This machine was as clear a prototype of their soon-enough-famous soda fountain drink mixers as one could ask.

Home electric mixers in due course varied, from the small, single-whipper, jar-mounted machines (Vidrio, Manning-Bowman, Chicago Electric, Knapp-Monarch, and A.C. Gilbert--yes, children, this was the company later known best for the legendary Erector building sets) to such ponderous, industrial-looking machines as were made by Hamilton Beach, MacLeod Manufacturing (the future Dormeyer Corporation), Fitzgerald, Hobart (its Kitchen Aid home appliance division), K-M, General Electric, Gilbert, Universal, and others. Until 1930, most of those mixers also sounded as industrial as they appeared. Then Ivar Jepson and his team introduced the very first Sunbeam Mixmaster, Model M4A (below, right), brought forth for initial sale around May 1930.

The Mixmaster is born: Model M4AFrom the outset, this was a simple, striking, eye-and-ear catching creature, streamlined to look and sound anything but a ponderous, industrially-derived household implement, even with the slightly protruding upper beater spindle wells at the front of the motor.* These shaped up into a mounting platform for a juicer attachment beginning with the Mixmaster's first upgrade, Model M4B (approximately August 1930). This first Mixmaster series featured a simple, neck-mounted on-off and speed switch, operating up to three speeds (graduating to four with Model M4C) by way of shaft bearings in the neck which snaked up toward the motor armature. The rounded rear motor shell featured only one centered motor bolt and two flanking bolts, securing the works. The housing overall was rather shapely - even with its protruding oval front gearbox, with a cover plate showing the brand, the nickname, the manufacturer, and patent numbers; even with the later top front juicer attachment mount.

The original Mixmaster was not detachable for portable use and bore no proper handle. As you see on Model M4A, the machine bore a large screw knob which revealed a lubrication port. Beginning with Model M4B, a knob would sit above the gearbox plate on the front of the juicer platform, securing the first Mixmaster juicer attachment when mounted (through a bracket on the juicer bowl bottom) and as a kind of handle to lift the beaters from the mixture below. (The juicer attachment spindle superceded the original lubrication port, too.)  The knob would appear on Models M4C and M4F, disappearing with the final entry in this first series, Model M4H (below, right). The juicer attachment and a mayonnaise oil dropper were included as standard issue with the Mixmaster; a spout-mounted juicer strainer would remain a feature of this attachment until 1948. The original Mixmaster came in ivory with Jadeite green glassware. Buyers could also buy a Mixmaster with an aluminum large bowl as well, until 1933, when the company began offering these bowls as separate additional accessories.

From the outset, company advertising touted the Mixmaster as saving its owner a ton of armwork. It was more than mere hyperbole. Most stand mixers of the era required an owner to turn the bowl manually to bring the batter to the beaters at regular intervals. The Mixmaster may have been the first of its breed to solve the problem of getting the mixture to the beaters without the user doing the job. One shifted the bowl turntable from one to another of a pair of mounting holes in the platform, depending on bowl size, to align the long-stemmed, banjo-shaped beaters flush right to the bowl sidewall. The centered mounting hole aligned the beaters to the small bowl sidewall; the off-center hole to a user's right aligned them flush to the large bowl sidewall. The large bowl included a rounded hump in the center bottom, with the beaters turning the bowl by this hump's outer rim and the lower inside sidewall rim--drawing every drop of batter into them. The slightly tulip-shaped small bowl required no such booster. More to the point, the motor was aligned on its stand, and the beater shafts were measured appropriately enough, that when the motor was down and the beaters in the bowl, the beaters were separated from the bowl by little more than the thickness of a sheet of paper. The only armwork required was adding an ingredient to the mixture or scraping starchy ingredients back to the batter, since they tended to cling to the bowl side. You could go about your business otherwise, paying attention to little more than required mixing time or speed adjustment as required, and the Mixmaster literally did perform all the work.

Model M4H with friendBetween that crucial quality, its striking appearance, its affordability, and its trademark nickname as well (compare it to some of the others, even the catchy Mixabeater), small wonder that the Mixmaster became an instant hit. Within a very short time, the nickname became generic for any kitchen mixer, just as Johnson & Johnson's Band-Aid would become generic for any household first-aid bandage, or Kleenex for any tissue. (Look at online or offline auctions today: often as not, sellers call various kitchen mixers Mixmasters, whether or not they were the actual Sunbeam product.) The Mixmaster became as much a signature of America's growing up as movies, baseball, jazz, radio, the blues, cars, rock and roll, take your pick. And it would endure, in ways its competitors have never quite equaled.**

Perhaps it was no surprise that the first Mixmaster underwent four upgrades within its almost three years of life. Considering his passion and incessant tinkering with working forms, Jepson could have been expected to find ways of improving this creature. His design team's aim was to improve the Mixmaster without fracturing critical essentials. Hugh Hefner (himself a Chicagolander), faced once with a suggested drastic change for Playboy (changing the magazine's name), answered that the magazine should change by evolution, not revolution. He could have been eavesdropping at 5600 Roosevelt Road, since that seems to have summed up the Jepson watchword two decades before Playboy raised any eyebrow. From nearly its outset, the Mixmaster let fall rather than throw down the gauntlet to challenge its competitors to make and meet new home product standards. The Jepson team made the Mixmaster put its money where its beaters were, but they were careful not to trip over their own forward-thinking selves. Very careful.


° - This phrase was how Sunbeam itself described the Mixmaster, when packaging the 1990 Anniversary Edition of its longtime MM-style series which debuted in 1967. The packaging featured an illustration of a 1930s woman and little girl minding a confection being whipped up in an early Mixmaster, with a small puff paragraph ending in the phrase, "Sunbeam - the mixer America grew up with." Its use as a banner around the packaging as well suggested the company mulled making this an official slogan for the machine, but the idea disappeared within two years.

°° - Lillian Gilbreth later developed the first known "ergonomic" kitchen and invented the toe-step trash can lid opener. She also worked with her husband, industrial productivity consultant Frank Gilbreth (himself the inventor of the bricklaying scaffold), in advising business and industry (and showing them ways to do it) that reducing fatigue was as important as the job's knowledge and skills, work she continued following his unexpected death in 1924.  America really came to know the Gilbreths, however, through a charming memoir written by two of their twelve children, Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey: Cheaper By The Dozen.

* - There was no Sunbeam Mixmaster in commercial production prior to 1930. It is possible, however, that Chicago Flexible Shaft may have experimented with a kitchen mixer and even produced one under a different name, though not for very long; however, your chronicler has happened upon no evidence suggesting this to be so. The company most likely pre-tested the Mixmaster in very limited quantity, according to Dan (Decodan) McQuade, who gleaned this information from a longtime Sunbeam repair expert. Mixmaster Model M4A, photograph,  courtesy of Brad Dunham.

** - Mixmaster Model M4H courtesy again of Dan (Decodan) McQuade. Mr. McQuade, in turn, offers his special thanks to Rich Boris, who made a gift of the machine to him. It should be noted here that the power transfer unit on which you see the meat grinder mounted was first made available with Model M4C, as suggested by the early 1932 advertisement shown above. (Advertisement courtesy of Kevin Crankshaw.) Beside the juicer, mayonnaise oil dropper, and meat grinder, these were the attachment options introduced during the run of the original style Mixmaster: knife sharpener, polishing wheel, can opener, possibly the coffee grinder for Model M4H. The trademark decal in the photograph of M4H with jadeite green bowl is actually in the original position, across the top of the motor - though Mr. McQuade used a decal for a second-generation Model 7 instead of a reproduced original, which said only "MIXMASTER Sunbeam The Best Electric Appliances Made" inside a rectangular plate image. The shield S appeared a few years later.

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