The Scandinavians got here long before the rest of Europe had a clue.
However, crackas I can help ya with:
Company time line
1792 - Pearson & Sons Bakery opens in Massachusetts. They make a biscuit called pilot bread consumed on long sea voyages.
**1801 - Josiah Bent Bakery first coined the term ‘crackers’ for a crunchy biscuit they produce.
1889 - William Moore acquires Pearson & Sons Bakery, Josiah Bent Bakery, and six other bakeries to start the New York Biscuit Company.
1890 - Adolphus Green starts the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company after acquiring forty different bakeries.
1898 - William Moore and Adolphus Green merge to form the National Biscuit Company. Adolphus Green is president.
1901 - The name Nabisco is first used as part of a name for a sugar wafer.
1971 - Nabisco becomes the corporate name.
1973 - Frank Tasco is listed as the chairman of Nabisco.
1981 - Nabisco merges with Standard Brands.
1985 - Nabisco Brands merges with R.J. Reynolds
1993 - Kraft General Foods acquires NABISCO ready-to-eat cold cereals from RJR Nabisco.
1999 - Nabisco acquires Favorite Brands International
2000 - Philip Morris Companies, Inc. acquires Nabisco and merges it with Kraft Foods, Inc.
[edit] Origins
Nabisco dates its founding to 1898,[4] a decade during which the bakery business underwent a major consolidation. Early in the decade, bakeries throughout the country were consolidated regionally, into companies such as Chicago’s American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company (which was formed from 40 Midwestern bakeries in 1830), the New York Biscuit Company (consisting of seven eastern bakeries), and the United States Baking Company. In 1898, the National Biscuit Company was formed from the combination of those three; the merger resulted in a company with 114 bakeries across the United States and headquartered in New York City. The National Biscuit Company first filed for a U.S. federal trademark for the name “Nabisco” on June 30, 1901.[5] The “biscuit” in the name of the company is a British English and early American English term for cracker products.
I have always understood the modern cracker derived from the baking of hard tack for long sea voyages or military campaigns. It’s just that the cracker has some fat added, which renders it ultimately perishable.
lol