Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Question: Which sugary treat commonly found at fairs was invented by a Nashville dentist?

Answer: William James Morrison, a dentist and inventor from Nashville, Tennessee, is widely credited with the invention of the first cotton candy machine — a device that cut out much of the manual labor previously associated with spun sugar. In 1897, he and his friend, confectioner John C. Wharton, worked together to produce a machine (which they called the “electric candy machine”) that melted sugar in a spinning central chamber and then used air to force the melted sugar through a wire screen into the surrounding metal bowl to produce the gauzy, spider-webby sweet that we now know so well.