Editing Toaster (section)

=== Toasting technology after the 1940s ===
In the 1980s, some high-end U.S. toasters featured automatic toast lowering and raising without the need to operate levers – simply dropping the bread into one of these "elevator toasters",<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kenmore "Elevator" Toaster |url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1097260 |access-date=2022-11-23 |website=National Museum of American History |language=en |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221123055545/https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1097260 |archive-date= 2022-11-23 }}</ref> such as the [[Sunbeam Products|Sunbeam]] Radiant Control toaster models made from the late 1940s through the 1990s, began the toasting cycle. These toasters use the mechanically multiplied thermal expansion of the resistance wire in the center element assembly to lower the bread; the inserted slice of bread trips a lever switch to activate the heating elements and their thermal expansion is harnessed to lower the bread.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

When the toast is done, as determined by a small bimetallic sensor actuated by the heat radiating off the toast, the heaters are shut off and the pull-down mechanism returns to its [[Room temperature|room-temperature]] position, slowly raising the finished toast. This sensing of the heat radiating off the toast means that regardless of the type of bread (white or whole grain) or its initial temperature (even frozen), the bread is always toasted to the same consistency.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US2667828A/en | title=US2667828A - Automatic toaster |website=Google Patents |url-status=live |archive-url= https://archive.today/20211128020330/https://patents.google.com/patent/US2667828A/en |archive-date= 28 Nov 2021 }}</ref>