Hannah L. Wessling | |
---|---|
Born | May 26, 1873 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
Died | January 18, 1960 Tracy, California, U.S. |
Other names | Hanna L. Wesseling |
Occupation(s) | Chemist, food scientist |
Hannah Louise Wessling (May 26, 1873 – January 18, 1960) was an American chemist, billed as "Uncle Sam's Bread Maker" during World War I.[1]
Wessling was from Cincinnati, Ohio,[2] the daughter of John Henry Wessling and Mary Dorothea Rabbe Wessling. Her father and her maternal grandparents were born in Germany.[3] She graduated from Woodward High School in 1894.[4]
Wessling taught chemistry in Cincinnati as a young woman.[5] In the 1910s and 1920s, Wessling worked for the United States Department of Agriculture in Chicago[6] and later in Washington, D.C.[7] She was a food scientist,[8] testing flours and creating optimal recipes and equipment for home baking, using alternative ingredients or varying pan sizes.[9] "Miss Wessling has devoted considerable time--thirteen years--in the work of making bread, jellies, preserves, and canning fruit, and later analyzing them as a chemist," explained one 1910 newspaper report.[10] Her work took on particular relevance during World War I, when food conservation required some substitutions in traditional recipes, and working women sought more efficient and economical ways to bake.[11]
Wessling was a home economist for the Northwest Yeast Company from 1922 into the 1940s.[12][13][14] She spoke at the American Home Economics Association meeting in Buffalo in 1924.[15]
Wessling lived in California in her later years. She died in 1960, at the age of 86.