For about as long as, well, forever, people have been trying to make a little bit go a long way. Bankers, mothers, golfers… and British confectioneries (or what we call on this side of the pond, candy makers) have been stretching melted sugar since before the 1600s. They used knives to pull it into long threads and then fashioned it into sweet shapes like wee-little birdie nests to garnish the dessert plates of the hoity-toity. You know, those old-timey peeps with big powdered wigs and ridiculous pants. But it took some good-old American ingenuity to spin fancy-schmancy sugar into a treat everyone could afford. Enter William Morrison and John C. Horton circa 1897. Billy Boy and his good pal JC figured out that if they heated up just one ounce of granular sugar until it melted, then spun it crazy fast in a new machine they cooked up, centrifugal force would squeeze the melted goo through tiny holes in the sides. And the whirling action aerated the stuff, fluffing it up so much that out came massive cottony clouds of- yep, cotton candy! Or what Will and Johnny called it: Fairy Floss. But it really didn't matter what they called it, because when they introduced it to the crowds at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904… our dynamic duo sold a jaw-dropping 68,000 boxes! Seems they were onto something. Spinning just a little bit of sugar into that much profit was mouth-watering to entrepreneurs, and a tasty new industry billowed out of St. Louis to the rest of the world.

Illuminating Moments in American History
From the accidental invention of the microwave to the love story of rubber gloves, these 68 animated video shorts (shadow puppet style!) chronicle the history of unexpected American innovation.

Produced, written, and directed by Nathan Marsh. Art and Animation by Joel West and Isaac Windham. Sound by Scott Sprague. Narration by Carol Munse.