Who Invented Cotton Candy?

When folks learn that one of cotton candy’s creators cleaned teeth for a living, jaws inevitably drop. Born in 1860, dentist William J. Morrison became president of the Tennessee State Dental Association in 1894. But Morrison was something of a polymath and a dabbler, and his varied interests also included writing children’s books and designing scientific processes: He patented methods for both turning cottonseed oil into a lard substitute and purifying Nashville’s public drinking water. In 1897, Morrison and a fellow Nashvillian — confectioner John C. Wharton — collaborated on an “electric candy machine,” which received a patent within two years. Their device melted sugar into a whirling central chamber and then used air to push the sugar through a screen into a metal bowl, where wisps of the treat accumulated.