Adolph Levitt Mechanized Doughnut Production

After World War I, returning American soldiers brought home a craving for doughnuts that women volunteers had served them in France. In 1920, a Jewish refugee named Adolph Levitt, who had fled czarist Russia, began frying and selling doughnuts from a Harlem bakery in New York City. When demand outpaced hand production, Levitt worked with an engineer to develop the first automatic doughnut machine and founded the Doughnut Machine Company to sell it nationwide.

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