Bagel Bakers Made 250,000 Daily

By 1960, the 350 Jewish artisans of New York City's Bagel Bakers Local 338 union had handmade almost all of the 250,000 bagels NYC needed every day. Bench men kneaded, shaped, and boiled the dough before oven men baked the bagels and sent them to customers on strings of five dozen. Their control weakened after Lender's Bagels adopted Canadian inventor Daniel Thompson's automated bagel machine in 1962, which produced 300 dozen bagels in the time two men needed to roll 125 dozen. Local 338 merged into a larger bakers' union in the early 1970s.

Previous Fact Next Fact