William James Morrison (1860–1926) was an American dentist and inventor who is best known for developing the

cotton candy Cotton candy, also known as fairy floss and candy floss, is a spun sugar confection that resembles cotton. It usually contains small amounts of flavoring or food coloring. It is made by heating and liquefying sugar, and spinning it centrifu ...

machine.

Career

Morrison, from

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, was an avid inventor, and has a number of inventions to his credit. One of them is the first otton candy(originally named Fairy Floss and named Candy Floss in the UK and Fairy Floss in Australia) machine, which he invented in 1897 in cooperation with confectioner John C. Wharton. This electric machine melted sugar and then used forced-air to push it through a wire screen. It was introduced at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, and was a big success. Thomas Patton and Josef Delarose Lascaux also claimed to invent the cotton candy machine.

References

* "History of the Tennessee State Dental Association" by Madison Jones, comp. by Thomas Davidson Dow. Tennessee Dental Association (Nashville), 1958 {{DEFAULTSORT:Morrison, William 1860 births 1926 deaths American dentists American inventors People from Nashville, Tennessee