User:A Dufrasne/sandbox

WearEver Cookware can trace its origins back to 1888 when Charles Martin Hall, a young inventor from Oberlin, Ohio discovered an inexpensive way to smelt aluminum by perfecting the electrochemical reduction process that extracted aluminum from bauxite ore. Aluminum is one of Earth’s most abundant elements, yet it was not until this time that a viable and economical commercial production process for aluminum was developed. Seeking to fund his continued exploration of this new process Hall eventually partnered with Alfred E Hunt, a metallurgist in charge of the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, raising $20,000 with the help of investors and eventually forming the Pittsburgh Reduction Company which would later come to be known as the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA).  These new processes introduced two new challenges to ALCOA; they would need to generate a market and encourage manufacturers to use this new aluminum and they would need to increase production in order to cut costs through economies of scale.  WearEver cookware was the method through which these challenges were met. WearEver Cookware created the first widely accepted and available aluminum based consumer products of their time. Initially this cookware was sold door-to-door by college students and would later be purchased in large quantities by organization such as the United States Marine Corps who would adopt Wear-Ever aluminum utensils as their standard issue utensils. 