---
title: "Which came first, the hamburger or television?"
description: "the hamburger vs television: the hamburger came first, by 25 years — 1900 against 1925. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/hamburger-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the hamburger or television?

**Which came first, the hamburger or television?: the hamburger**

1900 — 25 years before television

the hamburger came first, by 25 years. Competing American claims put the first burger between 1885 and 1904.

## Side by side

|  | the hamburger | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1900 | 1925 |
| Date | — | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | food | invention |
| What happened | Competing American claims put the first burger between 1885 and 1904. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## the hamburger

At least four places claim it. Charlie Nagreen said he flattened a meatball between bread at the Seymour Fair in Wisconsin in 1885; the Menches brothers claimed the same year at the Erie County Fair; Louis' Lunch in New Haven claims 1900; and Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas is credited with introducing it at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair. No contemporary document settles it. What is documented is the Hamburg steak — chopped beef, no bun — on American menus from the 1870s.

## television

John Logie Baird transmitted a recognisable moving image of a ventriloquist's dummy in October 1925 using a mechanical spinning-disc system. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated fully electronic television in 1927, and it was that approach, not Baird's, that every subsequent television used. Regular public broadcasting began in 1936, which means television is younger than the talking film and older than the ballpoint pen.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the hamburger or television?

the hamburger, by 25 years — 1900 against 1925.

### When did the hamburger start?

1900. Competing American claims put the first burger between 1885 and 1904.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)