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Charles F. Brush, electrical engineer from Cleveland and developer of the Brush arc lamp (1879), ca. 1880.

Charles F. Brush was the inventor of the arc lamp. He attended the University of Michigan and then resided in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent much of his life attempting to understand electricity and how to make it useful to human beings.

In 1879, Brush succeeded in creating the first arc lamp. After some more experimentation and modifications, Brush created a lamp that burned as brightly as four thousand candles. Such a bright light, obviously, could not be used inside of people's homes. Brush decided to market his invention to cities, so that they could light their streets at night. On April 29, 1879, Brush made a presentation of his invention to Cleveland residents. He had placed twenty arc lamps in the city's Monumental Park. Not sure of what to expect, people in attendance wore smoked glasses to protect their eyes. After the demonstration, numerous women complained that the lights would make it impossible for them to conceal imperfections on their skin. Cleveland officials, however, were impressed, and soon Cleveland had lights across the city. Cleveland was the first city to have electric street lighting in the United States.

Brush continued to experiment with electricity for the remainder of his life. He was responsible for numerous discoveries involving electricity's uses and received several dozen patents for his inventions.

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Charles F. Brush, electrical engineer from Cleveland and developer of the Brush arc lamp (1879), ca. 1880. Charles F. Brush was the inventor of the arc lamp. He attended the University of Michigan and then resided in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent much of his life attempting to understand electricity and how to make it useful to human beings.

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Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. He was the son of a minister. While he was in high school he began working as a printers apprentice. Following his apprenticeship, he and his brother, Wilbur, started a printing business, Wright and Wright, Job Printers.
Among the Wrights customers was Paul Laurence Dunbar, who had been a high school classmate of Orvilles. The Wrights printed The Tattler, a small, weekly newspaper for black readers which Dunbar edited. In 1892, the Wrights helped Dunbar publish his first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy. That book launched Dunbars career. He went on to become one of the best-known African-American writers of the early 20th century.

The printing business was not as kind to the Wrights. Their print shop failed and the brothers opened a bicycle repair shop, the Wright Cycle Company, in 1892. They were so good at working with bicycles that the pair soon began to manufacture their own models. Wilbur grew bored with the daily duties of the shop. After reading of Otto Lilienthal's experiments with gliders in Germany, he became interested in flying. By 1899, Wilbur had begun to experiment with gliders, airplanes that have no engines. Knowing that many people thought powered flight was impossible, Wilbur wrote the Smithsonian Institution for information on flying saying, "I am an enthusiast, but not a crank."

The Wrights studied books, observed birds and conducted experiments on the problem of flight. They suffered many failures in their early attempts to fly. Finally, they decided that the main reason no one had been able to build a successful airplane was because most of the information written about flight was inaccurate. The brothers decided to start again. This time they relied on their own studies. Their real breakthrough came when they built a wind tunnel. The wind tunnel allowed them to conduct experiments on wing design. After more than 200 designs, they were successful.

Leaving nothing to chance, the Wrights also studied weather charts to find the best place to conduct their test flights. Because of the strong winds along the North Carolina coast, Wilbur decided to test the gliders there. Orville stayed behind in Dayton to operate the bicycle shop while Wilbur set up a camp at Kitty Hawk, in 1900. There, he and Orville conducted experiments to improve their glider during 1901 and 1902.

After the Wrights perfected their glider, they were ready to build a powered airplane. They discovered, however, that no one made a gasoline engine light enough for their design. Determined not to give up, the brothers built their own engine.

In 1903, the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk to test their airplane. They flipped a coin to decide who would pilot the first flight. Wilbur won and made the first attempt at powered flight on December 14, 1903. Before the craft became airborne, it crashed. After spending two days repairing the machine, it was Orville's turn. This time, on December 17, 1903 at 10:53 a.m., the Wright Flyer lifted off the ground. It remained airborne for 12 seconds to become the first powered flight in history. The brothers took turns flying the machine three more times. Eventually, they kept it in the air for almost a minute. On the final flight, the Flyer was so badly damaged that they had to abandon the experiments and return to Dayton.

The brothers continued their research and perfected the airplane during 1904 and 1905 at what is now the site of the Wright Patterson Air Force Base. By 1905, they had produced the first practical airplane, the Wright Flyer III. That craft could make repeated takeoffs and landings, fly in circles and stay in the air more than 30 minutes. Despite their successes, the Wrights were unable to sell their design. Finally, they decided to manufacture and sell their own airplanes. In 1909, they founded the Wright Aeronautical Company.

The company lasted only a short time because Wilbur contracted typhoid fever and died in 1912. Without his brother, Orville lost interest and sold the business. Orville Wright lived until 1948 and saw the world shrink as a result of his invention. He saw the airplane become a major weapon of war and an important means of transportation. Today, the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop is preserved at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and their original airplane is housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

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Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. He was the son of a minister. While he was in high school he began working as a printers apprentice. Following his apprenticeship, he and his brother, Wilbur, started a printing business, Wright and Wright, Job Printers.

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Inspired by the California gold-mining operations, Lester Allan Pelton invented a unique water wheel that split the stream of water to take advantage of the kinetic energy of the water. The power and

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One of the fathers of hydroelectric power, Lester Pelton invented the first water wheel to take advantage of the kinetic energy of water rather than the weight or pressure of a stream. The speed and efficiency of Pelton's wheel made it ideal for generating electricity.

Pelton was born in Vermilion, Ohio. He migrated to California in 1850, in the midst of the Gold Rush. Failing to strike it rich, he worked as a carpenter and millwright. He began developing his water wheel in the late 1870s, as the power demands of mining operations and related industries grew ever greater.

Pelton designed a wheel with split buckets that harnessed the kinetic energy of a small volume of water flowing at high speed. Properly adjusted, Pelton's wheel could be over 90 percent efficient; other wheels were at best 40 percent efficient. With Pelton's wheel, low-cost hydroelectric power could replace expensive steam engines in mining operations in the western states, where streams rarely flowed at high enough volumes to turn traditional water wheels.

To keep up with tremendous demand, Pelton and a San Francisco machine shop owner organized the Pelton Water Wheel Company. Today, Pelton's wheel still generates electricity in small hydroelectric power plants in the western United States.

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search One of the fathers of hydroelectric power, Lester Pelton invented the first water wheel to take advantage of the kinetic energy of water rather than the weight or pressure of a stream. The speed and efficiency of Pelton's wheel made it ideal for generating electricity.

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L ester Allan Pelton, considered to be the father of modern day hydroelectric power, was born in Vermilion Township, Erie County, in Ohio on September 5, 1829.
H is grandfather, Captain Josiah S. Pelton located in Vermilion in 1818. Originally from the area of Hartford, Connecticut he lived for a time in Euclid, Cuyahoga County, Ohio and when his wife died moved the family to Vermilion. Although well read and very talented he had spent a great deal of his life in the West Indies as captain of a trading vessel and was in ill health by the time he reached Vermilion. Thus, he was not prepared to begin life anew. His oldest son, also named Josiah, then assumed the role of main patriarch for the family. With his guidance and support the family prospered and became comparatively wealthy.

Lester Allan Pelton's Birthplace c.1896-97
Vermilion Township, Ohio

Several views of Pelton's birthplace today (2006).
Now fully restored it is the home of Tom and Jean Beach

T here were seven other children in the family: Sylvester A., Austin, Franklin, Phoebe, Charlotte, Lucy, and Allen, who eventually married Fanny Cuddeback. Allen and Fanny were Lester's parents. All the children figured prominently in the development of the Village of Vermilion (incorporated in 1837) in various capacities both in business and government.

A lthough family members would eventually own various parcels of land throughout the township and village proper all, including Lester, started life on the Pelton farm in Vermilion Township.

L ester attended the Cuddeback School, a one room schoolhouse, on the southwest corner of Risden and West Shore Roads about a mile west of the village. Little more than this is known about his life in Vermilion.

I n the spring of 1850, when Lester was about 20 years old he, and and perhaps 10 local boys including William and David Johnson, and Charles Parker headed for gold country in California. Some say that along the way they worked as sheep herders to help them pay their way. Others say they went by wagon train. More to the truth of the matter they most likely did both and a whole lot more.

A rriving in California Pelton left his friends and went to Sacramento where he peddled fish to miners. After hearing that diggingh gold in the Sierra Nevada Mountains was more profitable he moved some ninety miles north toCamptonville in Yuba County along the Yuba River.This was in 1860. All types of mining were going on there; placer, hard rock, and hydrologic. Although Lester was not terribly interested in mining he was an avid reader and he enjoyed watching the mining efforts. A very introspective person, he was also a skilled tinsmith, carpenter, and millwright. At the time steam engines powered most of the mining works.

O ne day he was chasing a stray cow from his landlady's yard in Camptonville. He hit the cow on the nose with water and the water split, circled the cow's nostrils and came out at the outer edge. It gave him an idea. He went home and began to draw a water-wheel with split metal cups.

T hese are the drawings Pelton made for the U.S. Patent Office of his wheel and its parts. Included is an explanation of the wheel in his own words.

T his is, most simplistically, the way the Pelton Runner (water turbine) was conceived of and then invented. The runner was first used at the Mayflower Mine in Nevada City, California in 1878. In 1887 a miner attached Pelton's sheel to a dynamo and produced the first hydroelectric power in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. On August 27, 1889 the invention was officially patented. And by 1893 the Age of Hydroelectric power was in full swing. It has proven to be one of the, if not THE, most efficient inventions in mining and the production of hydroelectric power in our world.

Pelton's Wheel in Comptonville CA.

O n March 14, 1908 into his 79th year of life Lester Allan Pelton passed into the hands of God. He was cremated and his remains were transported back to the town where he was born and lived as a boy. There he was placed to rest with his family in Maple Grove Cemetery on Mason Road south of Vermilion.
Monuments celebrating Pelton's life were erected in Camptonville, California and Washington D.C. One of his original wheels is preserved in Camptonville. Another is on display in the Smithsonian Institute in our nation's capitol.
Inverted chalk rubbings of cemetery markers of the Pelton Family.
Note that the date of Sarah's birth is wrong. She was born in 1831.
(The stone-cutter must have been dyslexic.)

A LETTER FROM CA.

The following communication is, by and large, self explanatory. I rediscovered it whist rambling through the enormous amount of material I have stored on my computer(s). [As I have previously indicated there is a reason folks employ the services of assistants, etc.] In any case, I find the information contained in the letter to be of some historical import. To my knowledge it has not before been published outside a 1908 edition of The Vermilion News. Methinks you'll understand its import as ye read.

Editor Vermilion NEWS:

Thinking you might be glad to pay a last tribute of respect to a former resident of your town, I take the liberty of subjoining a brief sketch of Lester A. Pelton who passed away at his home 827 Grove street Saturday March 14th, 1908.

He was the only son of the late Allen Pelton, long a well known and highly respected citizen of Vermilion township.

In the spring of 1850 when the gold fever of l849 was at its height, Lester A, Pelton, Henry Roeder, Levi A. Pelton. Henry Hewitt And eight other young men of Vermilion caught the fever and made the preparations to go together as A party the great distance, to California. The journey was overland, long; and full of the hardships incident to that early period, much of it being made on foot The writer recalls listening to many recitals of the perils along the way, the scarcity of food when very small rations were dealt out every morning with the hope of eking out their scanty store until more could by obtained: when the finding of a dead buffalo was an important event; the meat that had dried upon the bones was sliced off and helped much to sustain the men during the latter part of the journey. The party, though spent and and worn was eager to push on to the gold fields, around which so many high hopes had been built. Here the party became more or less scattered. Lester Pelton, engaged in mining in Yuba and Serra counties, afterwards following the vocation of millright, superintending the building of many mills in the section. During his experience he saw the need of great water power, and to, this end he turned his attention, and in 1878 he commenced his experiments which resulted in the famous Pelton Water-Wheel, so out distancing every other invention of its class, as to make a world-wide name for itself. In 1895 the Elliott Cresson, Gold Medal was awarded to Mr. Pelton for his valuable invention, by the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia.

Some idea of the extensive use of these wheels may be gained from the fact that in 1892, over eleven thousand were in use in various parts of the world, in mines, manufactories and other industries; at the present time there are thousands more in use. Mr. Pelton's health became impaired and a number of years ago sold his invention to a San Francisco firm which manufactures the wheels on a large scale.

Being a man of reserved and studious habits he devoted his leisure to such pursuits as pleased him like, reading, or working in his perfectly equipped workshop which he lad fitted up in the basement of his home. Here he was often found working happily over some labor-saving device for the pure pleasure ot being occupied. The friends who knew him best valued his steadfast friendship and his perfect integrity. He was a man of dignified manner and appearance and was always glad to visit with his friends, especially any old "forty-niner"; He remarked to the writer only a few days before his death that he was the "last one of the twelve who came to California together, fifty eight years ago"; he did not seem to realize that he was so soon to join the band "over there".

The funeral services were held at his late home Monday, March I6th, the Rev. Charles Brown of Oakland, officiating. In closing he gave Tennyson's beautiful poem,

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the
bar
When I put out to sea

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark
And may there be no sadness of
farewell
When I embark.

For though from out our bourne of
Time and Place
The flood may bear me far.
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

A large number of friends followed him to the beautiful Columbarium; where, as he requested, his body was incinerated. Later the urn containing his ashes will be sent to Vermilion for interment with the other members of his family who rest in the cemetery there.

Mr. Pelton's only surviving sister, Mrs. Henry Wagner, resides in Cleveland, Ohio, Mrs. Fanny A. Stowe, his eldest niece is a resident of Oakland, Cal., Mrs. Ruth Simon and Nelson D. Wagner, niece and nephew of Mr. Pelton also live in Cleveland, Ohio.

Thanking you for giving this notice room In your paper, I am.

Very truly,
Francis M. Pelton
Oakland, Cal., March 18th, 1908

Lester Allan Pelton

A s the years turn and more details of Lester's boyhood in Vermilion are discovered they will appear on these pages.

©2010

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L ester Allan Pelton, considered to be the father of modern day hydroelectric power, was born in Vermilion Township, Erie County, in Ohio on September 5, 1829. H is grandfather, Captain Josiah S. Pelton located in Vermilion in 1818.

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ECO=KID EXPLORE HYDROELECTRIC POWER (Accessible Preview)

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Charles Brush perfected the system of electric arc lighting, making it practical for commercial use. He installed the first electric light system in the United States in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1879.

Brush was born in Euclid Township, Ohio. He built his first static electric machine at age 12 and constructed his first arc light in high school. After graduating from the University of Michigan on an accelerated schedule, Brush worked as an iron ore salesman and experimented on an improved dynamo in his spare time. Brush`s dynamo was key to a commercially viable lighting system and was widely used.

Soon after its introduction in Cleveland, Brush`s street lighting system was installed in New York City and London, and before long was lighting cities around the globe. Although the filament light bulb eventually replaced the arc light for many uses, the arc light still is commonly used in searchlights and cinema projection. Of Brush`s more than fifty inventions, many were improvements on the arc light.

After retiring from Brush Electric Company in 1891, Brush improved Carl Linde`s process for extracting oxygen from liquid air and became founder and first president of the Linde Air Products Company. He also was known for his invention of a more efficient basic storage battery.

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NIHF Inductee Charles Brush Invented Street Lighting

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Charles Brush perfected the system of electric arc lighting, making it practical for commercial use. He installed the first electric light system in the United States in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1879. Brush was born in Euclid Township, Ohio.

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Computer scientist
Annie J. Easley spent her 34-year career working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She started there as a "human computer." Later she became one of the first black computer programmers, working on alternative-energy technologies, energy-conservation systems, and the Centaur launch system. During her career Easley was transferred laterally three times, but did not receive any significant promotions.

Planned to Become a Pharmacist

Born on April 23, 1933, in Birmingham, Alabama, Annie J. Easley was the daughter of Samuel Bird Easley and Mary Melvina Hoover. Easley and her brother, six years older, were raised by their single mother. From the fifth grade through high school, Annie Easley attended parochial schools in Birmingham, graduating as class valedictorian. Although her mother told her that if she worked hard she could become whatever she wanted, Easley thought that nursing and teaching were the only careers open to black women. Since she didn't want to teach, Easley intended to become a nurse. However in high school she began thinking about becoming a pharmacist. Easley told Sandra Johnson in a 2001 interview conducted as part of NASA's History Office "Herstory" Project that "it may have something to do with going to the corner drugstore, where they had all of the candy and the ice cream."

Easley studied pharmacy for two years at Xavier University, a black Catholic school in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1954 she married and briefly returned to Birmingham. She worked as a substitute teacher in Jefferson County, Alabama, and helped blacks prepare for the literacy tests that they were required to pass in order to register to vote.

After Easley's husband was discharged from the military, the couple moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to be near his family. Easley hoped to continue her education. However the only pharmacy program in the region had recently closed.

Hired as a "Human Computer"

One day in 1955 Easley read a newspaper story about twin sisters who worked as computers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA's predecessor at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. The work sounded so interesting that the following day Easley applied for a job there.

Easley worked in the Computer Services Division, performing complex mathematical calculations for the engineering staff. Among other projects, she simulated conditions for a nuclear reactor being constructed at Plum Creek, Ohio. The human computers-almost all female-used tables and large mechanical calculators to perform their work. At the time Easley was one of only four blacks among the agency's 2,500 employees. She told Johnson: "I'm out here to do a job and I knew I had the ability to do it, and that's where my focus was, on getting the job done. I was not intentionally trying to be a pioneer." When a photo of Easley and her coworkers was enlarged for display at a laboratory open house, her face was cut out of the picture.

It was the dawn of the space age and the United States was competing with the Soviet Union. In 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, and the space race heated up. NACA became NASA. Easley told Johnson: "There was a real pride in being able to have talent, resources, and knowing that we could get in here and really, really do something great." With the introduction of electronic computers, the job titles of the human computers were changed to mathematician or math technician.

Worked on the Centaur

During the late 1960s and 1970s Easley worked on nuclear-powered rocket systems. She also worked on the Centaur, a high-energy booster rocket with a mixed liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen propulsion system. First launched successfully in 1963, over the next 30 years it went through further development and was considered one of the Lewis Research Center's greatest achievements. Known as NASA's "workhorse in space," it was used to launch communications, weather, and military satellites and space vehicles, including the 1997 Cassini spacecraft to Saturn. Easley sometimes traveled to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to observe the launches.

In the 1960s Easley returned to school, taking one class at a time. In the 1970s she started taking two, then three classes, while working full-time. Toward the end, she took a three-month leave without pay to finish up, earning her Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Cleveland State University in 1977. For part of that period she worked a six-day flexible schedule. Although NASA generally paid for work-related employee education, Easley was always turned down for aid and so she paid for her own courses. However once she had earned her degree, the Personnel Department decided that she needed more specialized courses to be considered a professional. Thus Easley undertook additional NASA-sponsored training, including a course in Houston, Texas.

During the 1970s Easley worked on a project examining damage to the ozone layer. With massive cuts in the NASA space program, Easley began working on energy problems. She developed and implemented computer programs for determining solar wind and for solving problems of energy monitoring and conversion, including technologies for wind power and solar energy. One of her studies involved determining the life of storage batteries used in electric vehicles.

Actively Participated in Work

Following the energy crisis of the late 1970s Easley studied the economic advantages of co-generating power plants that obtained byproducts from coal and steam. She was also responsible for monitoring electricity use at Lewis.

Easley served as Lewis's Equal Employment Opportunity officer, investigating complaints of discrimination. She belonged to the Speakers Bureau and gave talks on the technological spin-offs of NASA's research. Easley traveled to colleges and universities, recruiting engineers for the lab. She often represented NASA at school and college career days.

Easley's social life was centered at Lewis. Taking up skiing in her 40s, she founded and served as the first president of the NASA Lewis Ski Club. She also belonged to the running club and the Suggestion Awards Committee. Outside of Lewis Easley tutored school children and high-school dropouts who were returning to school.

At a Glance ...

Born Annie J. Easley on April 23, 1933, in Birmingham, AL; married 1954 (divorced). Education: Xavier University, New Orleans, LA, 1952-54; Cleveland State University, BS, mathematics, 1977.

Career:

NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (later NASA Lewis Research Center, John H. Glenn Research Center), Cleveland, OH, Computer Services Division, 1955-1979, Energy Directorate, 1979-80s, Engineering Directorate, Launch Vehicles Group, 1980s-1989, mathematician and computer engineer; Century 21 Beyond 2000 Realty Co., Parma Heights, OH, agent, 1990s-.

Memberships:

Glen Business and Professional Women's Organization, charter member; Greater Cleveland Ski Council, president; NASA Lewis Ski Club, founder and president; NASA Lewis Speakers Bureau.

Addresses:

Office- Century 21 Beyond 2000 Realty Co., 6370 York Rd., Parma Heights, OH 44130-3051.

Easley retired from NASA in 1989. She did volunteer work, took up snowboarding, and served as president of the Greater Cleveland Ski Council. She also took real-estate courses and became a real-estate agent. In 2000 Easley participated in the Association for Computer Machinery-Mills College Conference on Pioneering Women in Computing.

Selected writings

Periodicals

(With A. F. Kascak) Effect of Turbulent Mixing on Average Fuel Temperatures in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine, NASA Technical Note D-4882, November, 1968.

(With A. F. Kascak) Bleed Cycle Propellant Pumping in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine System, NASA Technical Memo X-2517, March 1972.

(With others) Performance and Operational Economics Estimates for a Coal Gasification Combined-Cycle Cogeneration Powerplant, NASA Technical Memo 82729, March, 1982.

Sources

Books

"Annie J. Easley," World of Computer Science, Gale Group, 2002.

Black Contributors to Science and Energy Technology, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Public Affairs, 1979, p. 19.

Sammmons, Vivian Ovelton, Blacks in Science and Medicine, Hemisphere, 1990.

Warren, Wini, Black Women Scientists in the United States, Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 87-88.

On-line

"African American Inventor," Southern California Edison, www.sce.com/Sc3/Templates/SupportAndervicesCategory.aspx?NRMODE=Published& NRNODEGUID=%7bC877DAF4-A8B7-492E-86EE-BFC27EA1DEA1%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fsc3%2fInventors%2fInventorsd-h& NRCACHEHINT=Guest (February 28, 2007).

"Annie J. Easley," NASA Oral History, www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/NASA_HQ/Herstory/EasleyAJ/AJE_8-21-01.pdf (February 28, 2007).

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annie j.1933— computer scientist annie j. easley spent her 34-year career working for the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa). she started there as a "human computer." later she became one of the first black computer programmers

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and the centaur launch system. during her career easley was transferred laterally three times

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but did not receive any significant promotions.

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Easley, Annie J.1933- Computer scientist Annie J. Easley spent her 34-year career working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She started there as a "human computer." Later she became one of the first black computer programmers, working on alternative-energy technologies, energy-conservation systems, and the Centaur launch system.

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Annie J. Easley (April 23, 1933 - June 25, 2011) was an American computer scientist, mathe , and rocket scientist. She worked for the Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, and was one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA.

Early life and education

Annie Easley was born to Samuel Bird Easley and Mary Melvina Hoover in Birmingham, Alabama. Before the Civil Rights Movement, educational and career opportunities for African-American children were very limited. African-American children were educated separately from white children, and their schools were often inferior to white schools. Annie's mother told her that she could be anything she would have to work at it. She encouraged Annie to get a good education. From the fifth grade through high school, Annie attended Holy Family High School, and was valedictorian of her graduating class.

In 1950, Easley enrolled in classes at Xavier University in New Orleans, which was then an African-American Roman Catholic University, and majored in pharmacy for about two years.

In 1954, she returned to Birmingham. As part of the Jim Crow laws that maintained racial inequality, African Americans were required to pass a literacy test and pay a poll tax in order to vote, which was outlawed in 1964 in the Twenty-fourth Amendment. She remembered the test giver looking at her application and saying only, "You went to Xavier University. Two dollars." Subsequently, she helped other African-Americans prepare for the test.

Shortly thereafter, she moved to Cleveland to be closer to her husband's family, with the intention of continuing her studies. Unfortunately, the local university had ended its pharmacy program a short time before and no nearby alternative existed.

Throughout the 1970s, Easley advocated for and encouraged female and minority students at college career days to work in STEM careers.

Career at NACA and NASA

In 1955, she read a story in a local newspaper about twin sisters who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as "computers". She applied for a job the next day, and was hired two weeks later - one of four African Americans of about 2500 employees. She began her career as a mathematician and computer engineer at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (which became NASA Lewis Research Center, 1958-1999, and subsequently the John H. Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland, Ohio. She continued her education while working for the agency, and in 1977, obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Cleveland State University. As part of a continuing education, Easley worked through specialization courses offered by NASA. Easley was denied financial aid that other employees received for education, without explanation from the agency.

Easley's outreach for minorities did not end with her volunteer work at college career days. At NASA she took upon herself to be an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) counselor. This was one of the formal ways that she helped her supervisors at NASA address discrimination complaints from all levels.

Her 34-year career included developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power technologies, supported the Centaur high-energy upper rocket stage, determined solar, wind and energy projects, identified energy conversion systems and alternative systems to solve energy problems. Her energy assignments included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries, such as those used in electric utility vehicles. Her computer applications have been used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies. She retired in 1989. Despite her long career and numerous contributions to research, she was cut out of NASA's promotional photos.

Easley's work with the Centaur project helped lay the technological foundations for future space shuttle launches and launches of communication, military and weather satellites. Her work contributed to the 1997 flight to Saturn of the Cassini probe, the launcher of which had the Centaur as its upper stage.

Annie Easley was interviewed in Cleveland on August 21, 2001 by Sandra Johnson. The interview is stored in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space Center Oral History Program. The 55 page interview transcript includes material on the history of the Civil Rights Movement, Glenn Research Center, Johnson Space Center, space flight, and the contribution of women to space flight. In that same Interview, Easley was asked whether she still played with gadgets and stated "I don't have the time or the desire. I will get the email and I'll send it, but I don't play with it. It's not like this fascinating thing I play with. I'd much rather be out doing something actively, like on the golf course or doing other things.

Easley was also a budding athlete who founded and subsequently became the first President of the NASA Ski Club and participated in other local ski clubs.

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Annie J. Easley (April 23, 1933 - June 25, 2011) was an American computer scientist, mathe , and rocket scientist. She worked for the Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

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Facts About Thomas Edison for Kids | Lesson Video

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Thomas Edison (February 11, 1847 - October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and entrepreneur who invented many things. Edison developed one of the first practical light bulbs, but contrary to popular belief, did not invent the light bulb. Edison's received 1093 patents, which was the most granted to any inventor in his time. He started the General Electric Company to make some of the things he invented. He died due to a disease called diabetes.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. When Edison was seven years old, he moved with his family to Port Huron, Michigan, where he started school late because of an illness. Three months later, Edison was removed from school because he could not pay attention to his teacher. His mother, who had been a teacher in Canada, taught Edison at home. Edison's mother helped him become motivated for learning.

When Edison was twelve years old, he caught scarlet fever. The effects of the fever left Edison completely deaf in his left ear and 80 percent deaf in the other. When he was thirteen, he began a job selling candy, newspapers, and vegetables on a train. He used the money he made to buy equipment for chemical and electrical experiments.

After Edison saved a young boy from being hit by a runaway train, the boy's father trained him to be a telegraph operator ("brass pounder") on the Grand Trunk Railway. At age sixteen, Edison made his first invention, which was called an "automatic repeater." It used punched tape to send telegraph signals more quickly between telegraph stations that did not have operators in them.

In 1868, Edison moved East and began to work for the Western Union Company in Boston, Massachusetts, as a telegraph operator. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. Within six months, he had applied for and received his first patent for an electric vote recorder. It made the voting process faster, but he could not find buyers. Then, Edison moved to New York and began to work for a company fixing their machines. At night, he continued to work on his projects.

In 1876, Edison used the money from his inventions to start his own laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park laboratory had expanded to cover two city blocks.

In 1877~78, he invented the carbon microphone, which made the sound for Alexander Graham Bell's new telephone invention louder.

In 1877, Edison invented the phonograph, the first machine that could record and play sound. The phonograph made him famous around the world. However, it was later discovered that the French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville had invented sound recording before Edison.

In 1879, Edison made a light bulb that lasted longer than the current light bulbs.

Another invention in 1879, the electric power distribution network, helped bring electricity to homes and businesses.

West Orange and Fort Myers

After the death of his first wife, Mary, Edison purchased "Glenmont," a home in West Orange, New Jersey, as a wedding gift for his second wife, Mina. The couple spent the winters at a home they purchased in Fort Myers, Florida. Edison kept working no matter where he lived. His main focus while he lived in Fort Myers was rubber. He and his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone started a laboratory where Edison could grow plants that would make rubber so that America would not have to depend on other countries for it.

During World War I, he suggested forming a science and industry committee to provide advice and research to the US military, and he headed the Naval Consulting Board in 1915.

Personal life and children

Thomas Edison married Mary Stilwell in 1871. He had three children in that marriage: Marion Estelle Edison (also called "Dot"), Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. (also called "Dash"), and William Leslie Edison. Mary Stilwell died in 1884 at the age of twenty-nine.

When he was thirty-nine, Edison married his second wife, Mina Miller, who was nineteen. He had 3 children in that marriage: Madeleine Edison, Charles Edison (who took over the company when his father died and was later elected Governor of New Jersey), and Theodore Miller Edison.

Final years and death

Edison was active in business even in his last years. He worked on developing the Lackawanna Railroad and was there when it began. He drove the train its first mile.

Thomas Alva Edison passed away on October 18, 1931, from complications from diabetes. He is buried behind his "Glenmont" home.

Thomas Edison quotes

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"A genius is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework."

"If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."

"I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing."

"The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world."

Interesting facts about Thomas Edison

Thomas's father, Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr., took part in a protest of the British Crown's rule of its North American territory. After the protest, he fled to America, where Thomas was born.

Edison thought his poor hearing helped him concentrate.

Edison was called "Al" as a child.

When Thomas was fifteen, he began printing a newspaper on the Grand Trunk Railway called the Grand Trunk Herald.

Edison's first two children were nicknamed with telegraph-inspired names: "Dot" and "Dash."

Nikola Tesla worked for Thomas Edison for a short time.

Thomas has been called "The Wizard of Menlo Park."

On December 31, 1879, the Menlo Park laboratory was electrically lit for the first time.

Edison enjoyed reading and reciting poetry.

Edison made a device to kill cockroaches with electricity.

The Henry Ford Museum claims to hold Thomas Edison's last breath in a test tube.

Images for kids

Photograph of Edison with his phonograph (2nd model), taken in Mathew Brady's Washington, DC studio in April 1878

Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, reconstructed at Greenfield Village at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Note: the pipe organ against the back wall.

The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company's new steamship, the Columbia, was the first ship to use Edison's incandescent light bulb in 1880.

From Left to Right: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone, the three partners of the Edison Botanic Research Corporation

In Spanish: Thomas Alva Edison para niños

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Facts Just for Parents, Teachers and Students

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Name: Thomas Edison

Profession: Inventor and Businessman

Born: February 11th, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, USA

Died: October 18th, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey, USA

Resting Place: Llewellyn Park, West Orange, NJ, USA

Legacy: Considered the greatest inventor in American history

24 Thomas Edison Facts for Kids

1. Thomas Edison was a businessman and inventor in the United States of America.

2. Thomas Edison is most famous for his invention of the light bulb and for being one of the greatest inventors in the history of the United State.

3. Thomas Edison was born on February 11th, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, United States.

4. Thomas Edison was the son of Samuel Ogden Edison Jr. and Nancy Matthews Elliott.

5. Thomas Edison was the youngest of the seven children of Ogden and Nancy.

6. Thomas Edison was married twice; his first marriage was to Mary Stilwell (1871 to 1884) and his second marriage was to Mina Miller (1886 to 1931).

7. Thomas and Mary had three children before her death in 1884, one girl and two boys. Their names were Marion Estelle Edison, Thomas Alva Edison Jr. and William Leslie Edison.

8. Thomas and Mina had three children before he died in 1931, one girl and two boys. Their names were Charles Edison, Madeleine Edison and Theodore Miller Edison.

9. Thomas Edison died due to complications of diabetes at the age of 84 on October 18th, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey, United States.

10. At a young age, Edison was fascinated by how things worked. As a child, he would take things apart and try to figure out how they worked. Many believe this what made Edison want to be an inventor.

11. In 1862, Edison works for the Union Army sending coded messages during the American Civil War.

12. Between 1875 and 1879, Edison attended Cooper Union College and took a four-year course on chemistry.

13. In 1877, Edison invented the phonograph. A phonograph was a mechanical device that had the ability to record sounds and then play them back.

14. In 1878, Edison started working on the electric light or popularly known as a light bulb. He would be granted U.S. patent 223,898 on January 27th, 1880. This is a few months before they discover a carbonized bamboo filament would give an electric light a lifespan over 1,200 hours.

15. In December 1880, Edison started the Edison Illuminating Company. This was a company that would complete with the existing gas light utilities and provide electricity to homes and businesses.

16. In 1882, Edison turned on his first electrical power distribution system ran by the Edison Illuminating Company. This distribution system provided 110 volts (direct current or DC) to 59 customers in New York.

17. Between the late 1880s and early 1890s, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse fight what is known as the battle of the currents. Edison's distribution system used direct current (DC), while Westinghouse's system used alternating current (AC). Ultimately alternating current would win the battle of the currents.

18. In 1891, Edison and William K. Dickson jointly invented the Kinetograph. This was the invention was the first motion picture camera that could capture movement and sound.

19. In 1898, Edison uses his Kinetograph invention to film U.S. soldiers leaving to fight the Spanish-American War.

20. In 1901, Edison invented the first nickel-iron rechargeable battery and started the Edison Storage Battery Company. In less than three years, the Edison Storage Battery Company had over 450 employees.

21. By the time Thomas Edison died he have 1,093 registered patents for a wide variety of inventions.

Pictures of Thomas Edison

A picture of an electric light bulb, one of the inventions of Thomas Edison.

A picture of a phonograph, one of the inventions of Thomas Edison.

A picture of a stamp celebrating the 50th anniversary of the light bulb.

Additional Resources on Thomas Edison

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Thomas Edison Facts for Kids - Facts Just for Parents, Teachers and Students

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Name: Thomas Edison Profession: Inventor and Businessman Born: February 11th, 1847 in Milan, Ohio, USA Died: October 18th, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey, USA Resting Place: Llewellyn Park, West Orange, NJ, USA Legacy: Considered the greatest inventor in American history Thomas Edison was a businessman and inventor in the United States of America.

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Aluminum Can - Top 4 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About It

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Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University

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In the meantime, Gammeter and Osborne had organized the American Multigraph Company in 1902, manufacturing the machine in a small unsightly one-story wooden structure at E. 40th St. and Kelley Ave. Gammeter's duplicator, often referred to as the "waffle iron," evolved into a broad line of sophisticated multigraph equipment. Soon after the company was founded Gammeter's health began to fail, and in an effort to recover, he developed Green Springs, Ohio as a health spa, while maintaining his residence in CLEVELAND HEIGHTS.

Gammeter was married to Maude Fry, and they had two children, Electa and Harry F. He died in Cleveland at age 67 and was buried in Green Springs.

Brainard, George C., A Page in the Colorful History of Our Modern Machine Age (1950).

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GAMMETER, HARRY C. | Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University

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In the meantime, Gammeter and Osborne had organized the American Multigraph Company in 1902, manufacturing the machine in a small unsightly one-story wooden structure at E. 40th St. and Kelley Ave. Gammeter's duplicator, often referred to as the "waffle iron," evolved into a broad line of sophisticated multigraph equipment.

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Born into a Quaker family in Barnesville, Ohio, Gray was brought up on a farm. He spent several years at Oberlin College where he experimented with electrical devices. Oberlin is a town southwest of Cleveland, Ohio. Although Gray was not a graduate of Oberlin College, he taught electricity and science at Oberlin and built laboratory equipment for Oberlin science departments.

Elisha Gray was an educator and inventor in nineteenth-century America.

Gray was born in Barnesville, Ohio, on August 2, 1835. He worked as an apprentice to a blacksmith before attending Oberlin College. Gray was always interested in the way in which mechanical objects functioned and began to make a name for himself as an inventor. He invented a musical telegraph, which is sometimes credited with being the first electronic musical instrument. About the same time that Alexander Graham Bell was developing the telephone, Gray was working on a similar project. The two men filed similar patents in 1876. After a long court battle, Bell was given the credit for the invention of the telephone. Gray continued to patent inventions for the remainder of his life, most of which were associated with the telegraph.

Gray founded the Western Electric Manufacturing Company in 1872. In 1888 and 1891, Gray patented a machine that he called the telautograph. The telautograph had the ability to transmit facsimiles of handwriting or drawings. This invention was a significant contribution to the data transmission technology of the twentieth century. Gray obtained patents for approximately seventy inventions during his lifetime and he taught at Oberlin College for a number of years. Gray died in Newtonville, Massachusetts, on January 21, 1901.

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Born into a Quaker family in Barnesville, Ohio, Gray was brought up on a farm. He spent several years at Oberlin College where he experimented with electrical devices. Oberlin is a town southwest of Cleveland, Ohio. Although Gray was not a graduate of Oberlin College, he taught electricity and science at Oberlin and built laboratory equipment for Oberlin science departments.

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Florida Patent Attorney Highlights Alexander Graham Bell v  Elisha Gray Patenting First Controversy

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Charles Martin Hall discovered the electrolytic method of producing aluminum cheaply, bringing the metal into wide commercial use. As a young chemist experimenting in a woodshed, Charles Hall invented a method for extracting pure aluminum from its ore. Understanding aluminum's potential, Hall founded an industry that contributed to many others, particularly the manufacture of aircraft and automobiles.

Born in Thompson, Ohio, Hall was a student at Oberlin (Ohio) College when he became interested in producing aluminum inexpensively. He continued to use the college laboratory after his graduation in 1885 and discovered his method eight months later. After several unsuccessful attempts to interest financial backers, he obtained the support of Alfred E. Hunt and a few of his friends. Together they formed the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later the Aluminum Company of America). In 1890 Hall became company vice president.

By 1914 Hall's process had brought the cost of aluminum down to 18 cents a pound. Aluminum, once a precious metal used for fine jewelry, is now inexpensive enough for everyday packaging. Hall became a generous benefactor of his alma mater, bequeathing Oberlin more than $5 million.

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NIHF Inductee Martin Hall and Aluminum Production

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Charles Martin Hall discovered the electrolytic method of producing aluminum cheaply, bringing the metal into wide commercial use. As a young chemist experimenting in a woodshed, Charles Hall invented a method for extracting pure aluminum from its ore.

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Charles Francis Jenkins was born on August 22, 1867, in Dayton, Ohio. At a young age, Jenkins's family moved to Richmond, Indiana, where Jenkins spent most of his youth. He attended Earlham College in Indiana, before accepting a position as a stenographer for the federal government in Washington, DC, in 1890.

In his free time, Jenkins fancied himself to be an inventor. Beginning in 1891, he tried to develop a motion picture projector. By 1892, he had succeeded in developing a machine that could project small moving pictures on a wall or screen, but the pictures were too small to be viewed by a large audience. In 1895, Jenkins left his stenographer position and entered into a business relationship with Thomas Armat. Together, the two men improved Jenkins's early invention. The two inventors unveiled their projector at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, in September 1895. Armat and Jenkins charged people twenty-five cents to view moving pictures, which were projected from the phantascope, Jenkins's and Armat's projector. Many historians give credit to Jenkins and Armat for also developing the movie theater to show their films at the Cotton States Exposition. The two men projected their films into two small rooms simultaneously from a single projection booth.

Jenkins's and Armat's relationship quickly deteriorated. In October 1895, Jenkins took one of the three phantascopes that the two men had manufactured to Richmond, Indiana, his boyhood home, to show residents his moving pictures. He also filed a patent for the phantascope, claiming that he was the sole inventor, although an earlier patent claimed that Jenkins and Armat were joint presenters. In the end, the U.S. Patent Office granted Jenkins and Armat the patent, rejecting Jenkins's claim that he was solely responsible for the phantascope. Angered with the Patent Office's decision, Jenkins continued to boast that he had developed the phantascope in 1894 and projected images for audiences in Richmond, Indiana, as early as June 6, 1894, a blatantly false statement. Jenkins also entered into an agreement with the Columbia Phonograph Company to manufacture the phantascope. In the meantime, Armat began negotiations to sell the phantascope patent to Thomas Alva Edison. Eventually Jenkins sold his rights to the phantascope to Armat, who sold his rights to Edison, causing many people to credit Edison with the invention of the motion picture projector, when it reality it was Jenkins and Armat. Following the dispute with Armat, Jenkins remained involved in the motion picture industry, helping found and serving as the first president of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers in 1916.

Perhaps Jenkins's next great contribution was in the field of television. Many scholars credit Jenkins with inventing the first television set in the United States. British inventor John Logie Baird broadcast images on a television in Europe a few months before Jenkins managed to complete the same task in the United States.

Jenkins utilized what became known as mechanical television or radiovision. He used radio receivers that had a special attachment, which allowed the receivers to broadcast moving pictures on a six-inch square mirror. Jenkins made the first public display of his radiovision on June 23, 1925, although he claimed that he transmitted the first moving pictures via radiovision on June 24, 1923. Most scholars believe that Jenkins's earlier broadcast was a lie on Jenkins's part.

On July 2, 1928, Jenkins formed the first television station in the United States and began broadcasting this same day. The station was known as W3XK and was located in Wheaton, Maryland. Jenkins's first program consisted of a ten-minute segment of a revolving windmill. In December 1928, Jenkins formed the Jenkins Television Corporation in New Jersey to manufacture Radiovisors, Jenkins's radiovision receivers, and to market and form television stations across the United States. In 1932, De Forest Radio purchased Jenkins Television Corporation and, a few months later, sold the Jenkins component of the company to RCA, which immediately ended production of the Radiovisors and ceased transmitting programs to mechanical televisions.

The principal reasons for RCA's decision to cease broadcasting and to end production were the expensive cost of Radiovisors -- the sets routinely cost between eighty-five and 135 dollars per set -- and the poor picture quality of mechanical televisions. The pictures commonly were too dark for viewers to see any more than silhouettes. These silhouettes became known as shadowgraphs. Also, by the early 1930s, dramatic improvements had been made in broadcasting images through what was known as electronic scanning television systems. Jenkins continued to seek ways to improve the Radiovisor until his death on June 6, 1934.

Over the course of his life, Jenkins received more than four hundred patents. Many of these patents were in the fields of motion pictures and television, but Jenkins also made numerous other contributions to society with his inventions. In 1898, Jenkins invented the first automobile with the engine in the front of the car instead of under the seat. In 1901, he designed an early sight-seeing bus and a decade later developed an early automobile self-starter. In addition to these and hundreds of other inventions, Jenkins also developed an airplane brake, a bean-shelling machine, and a conical paper drinking cup.

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Charles F. Jenkins - Ohio History Central

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Charles Jenkins was an innovator of early cinema and one of the first inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic technologies. Over the course of his career as an inventor, he secured hundreds of patents.

Jenkins started experimenting with movie film in 1891 and soon quit his job to focus on improving his movie projector, the Phantoscope. In 1894, Jenkins showed his parents, friends, and newsmen his "motion picture projecting box," presenting a short reel film which he had filmed himself. Jenkins' demonstration is regarded as one of the first times an audience watched a projected movie.

Jenkins attended the Bliss School of Electricity in Washington, D.C., where he met his fellow classmate Thomas Armat, and together they improved the design. They did a public screening at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. Jenkins eventually sold his interest in the projector to Armat, who in turn sold it to Thomas Edison who marketed the projector under the name Vitascope. Jenkins, meanwhile, began work on television, founding the Jenkins Television Corporation in 1928. The company was acquired by the DeForest Radio Corporation, which later was purchased by RCA. RCA chose to focus on electronic television, rather than the mechanical means demonstrated by Jenkins.

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NIHF Inductee Charles Jenkins, Movie Projector Inventor

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NIHF Inductee Charles Jenkins, movie projector inventor, was one of the first inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic technologies.

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Charles Franklin Kettering invented the first electrical ignition system and the self-starter for automobile engines and the first practical engine-driven generator. Born in an Ohio farmhouse, Kettering graduated from Ohio State University in 1904 as an engineer. He then joined the National Cash Register Company, where he oversaw development of the electrically operated cash register, among other products.

In 1909 he left NCR and, with businessman Edward A. Deeds, set up the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company or Delco, where he invented his most significant engine devices. Kettering's engine-driven generator, named the "Delco," provided electricity on millions of farms. In 1916 Kettering sold his company to General Motors. At G.M. he set up and directed a central research laboratory and stayed for 31 years, until his retirement in 1947.

The lab developed the lightweight diesel engine that made the diesel locomotive possible, the refrigerant Freon, four-wheel brakes, safety glass, and many other items. Kettering was the holder of some 140 patents. Along with G.M. President Alfred Sloan, he established the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

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NIHF Inductee Charles Kettering and the Electrical Ignition System

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Charles Franklin Kettering invented the first electrical ignition system and the self-starter for automobile engines and the first practical engine-driven generator. Born in an Ohio farmhouse, Kettering graduated from Ohio State University in 1904 as an engineer.

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Charles F. Kettering - Ohio History Central

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In 1890, John William Lambert, a resident of Ohio City, Ohio, built the first gasoline powered single cylinder vehicle. Lambert purchased a three cylinder gasoline engine for 3,300 dollars and converted it to a single cylinder engine. He also used a seven gallon radiator with steam vent and a carburetor in his engine. Lambert placed the engine in a buggy chassis, with two rear wheels and a single wheel off of a wheelbarrow in the front. His vehicle could reach speeds as high as five miles per hour. In 1891, John William Lambert was involved in the first gasoline powered, single cylinder vehicle accident in history. His vehicle, which was carrying Lambert and James Swoveland, hit a tree root causing the buggy to smash into a hitching post. Injuries from the accident were minor.

While Lambert's invention, the gasoline powered single cylinder vehicle, proved to be successful, the actual buggy design was hazardous. Two wheels in the back and one small wheel in front was not balanced. Lambert made several test runs and spent much time redesigning his vehicle making improvements. He began building another car. This time he used a horseless carriage with two back wheels and two front wheels. Lambert placed the gasoline powered single cylinder engine in his four wheel automobile. Unfortunately, even before his second invention was put to a road test, it was destroyed in a fire. Both of his inventions were destroyed. However, John W. Lambert is credited with inventing an automobile that was the first gasoline powered car in America.

As an inventor, Lambert worked in private in the basement of the elevator business he operated. He experimented in secret, and did not reveal his inventions until they were complete and ready to share with the public. Lambert proceeded to patent over six hundred inventions, mostly affiliated with the automobile industry.

John Lambert was born in Champaign County, Ohio, on January 29, 1860, and died in Anderson, Indiana, on May 20, 1952.

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In 1890, John William Lambert, a resident of Ohio City, Ohio, built the first gasoline powered single cylinder vehicle. Lambert purchased a three cylinder gasoline engine for 3,300 dollars and converted it to a single cylinder engine. He also used a seven gallon radiator with steam vent and a carburetor in his engine.

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John William Lambert (January 29, 1860 - May 20, 1952) was an American automobile manufacturer pioneer and inventor. He is the inventor of the first practical American gasoline automobile. He operated large manufacturing companies that made transmissions, stationary gas engines, farm tractors, commercial motor trucks, railroad inspection vehicles, and various gasoline driven street cars. He had over 600 patents. In 1891, he built a working gasoline automobile, one year before the Duryea Brothers constructed theirs.

Lambert was born on January 29, 1860, in Champaign County, Ohio. His parents were George Lambert and Anna (Liber) Lambert. They were both natives of Pennsylvania and pioneers of Ohio. Lambert was the third child of ten children in the family. He received his education in the local public schools where he grew up as a child.

In 1876 at the age of 16 Lambert invented the first automatic corn planter and manufactured hundreds of them from his hometown of Mechanicsburg, Ohio. In either 1875 or 1876, Lambert's father took him on a trip to a tannery, to see an engine that ran without a steam boiler. Upon arriving, he was disappointed to see that building had burned down the night before. He was curious about the engine he was supposed to have seen in operation, so he investigated the still-warm ashes and ruins to find the burned engine. He found it, and examined its parts to figure out how it worked. It was a slide valve coal gas engine.

In 1885, Lambert and his brothers moved to Union City, Ohio. There, John went into a partnership arrangement with his father, and formed an agricultural implement enterprise called J.W. Lambert & Company. The company made and sold farm equipment. After a few years doing this, he relocated to Ohio City, Ohio. There, he operated a farm equipment store, lumber yard, and grain elevator business. He also owned commercial real estate, including the town's opera house and the town hall.

In 1890, Lambert got involved in financing the development of a three-cylinder gasoline engine designed by John B. Hicks, an inventor from Cleveland. His initial investment was $200 (equivalent to $6,000 in 2021), and more was needed as time went on. Lambert supplied the increments needed, until he had given Hicks $3300 (equivalent to $103,000 in 2021). Lambert made a written agreement with Hicks on the engine, for a license to manufacture it with whatever modifications he felt necessary. He used Hicks' engineers to further modify the design of the engine. Machining was done by Lowell Machine Company. Lambert removed two cylinders, making it a one-cylinder engine. The engine was still not operating entirely correctly after these alterations; in January 1891, he had the unfinished engine and its components shipped to him from Cleveland. Once it arrived in Ohio City, he performed further modifications to make it operational, and designed a unique carburetor to work with the upgraded engine.

Also in January 1891, Lambert designed, and started construction on, a three-wheel carriage vehicle. Before the end of the month, he finished the three-wheel buggy and installed his lightweight engine on it for propulsion. He successfully test-drove the self-propelled buggy at that point, inside the 80-foot (24 m) farm equipment showroom he owned and managed in Ohio City. He made some changes to the steering lever controlling the front wheel, making it a stirrup device operated by the feet instead.

The Lambert gasoline engine propelled buggy was the first practical gasoline automobile made in the United States that could be driven on roads. He made his horseless carriage in 1891, and was ahead of the Duryea Brothers by a year and Henry Ford by five years. During initial tests, it often took a long time to get the automobile started again after it stopped. The original three-wheel car was destroyed in a building fire where he had it stored; however, photographs taken of it did survive. Lambert made sales brochures, which he mailed out in the first part of February 1891, to sell versions of his buggy for $550 (equivalent to $17,000 in 2021). Later in that month, he began to take the buggy on the streets of Ohio City for experimental drives. There were about 300 different styles of horseless carriages built by others by 1895.

Lambert's vehicle was drawn up by a German architectural draftsman of Cleveland named William Watcholtz, one of Hicks' engineers. The tri-wheeled automobile had 48 in (1,200 mm) rear wheels and a 24 in (610 mm) front center wheel, by which it was steered using foot pedals. It had wooden wheels, with steel tires, and could carry two passengers. Lambert patented his carburetor in 1902. He had inquires for more information on his buggy automobile, but made no sales.

Lambert, in 1893, relocated to Anderson, Ohio, taking some of his machinery with him. The new facility, made of brick, occupied around six acres and employed 250 people. It became the Buckeye Manufacturing Company, and the Lambert Gas and Gasoline Engine Company. The facility updated its equipment to manufacture automobiles in 1902, becoming the Union Automobile Company. Lambert's father became the president of the new enterprises, and Lambert himself became the treasurer and general manager of these ventures.

Lambert is recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as the inventor of America's first gasoline powered car. The institute's museum and research center collections department holds several documents and photographs in Washington, D.C., that have been used by historians over the years to determine Lambert's gasoline buggy, also called the Buckeye gasoline buggy, as the first operational gasoline automobile made in the United States. He is also credited with the first American automobile accident. In 1891, while testing his horseless carriage, Lambert drove it into a tree root and accidentally ran into a hitching post. Lambert was driving the gasoline powered vehicle at the time and carrying a passenger by the name of James Swoveland, a local businessman that operated the city's drug store.

There was secrecy surrounding the development of his automobile. Operational tests were conducted with the blinds pulled at the farm implement showroom where he ran it. Outdoor road tests were conducted at night, on roads that were seldom used. The few who saw it were mostly unaware of the machine's nature, due to the horseless carriage being a totally unfamiliar concept.

After World War I, the Union Automobile Company "realized that automobile production had to be conducted on a very large scale"; as it was unable to derive the necessary economy of scale from mass production to price its products competitively, it pivoted to other areas of manufacturing, and as of 1976 still operated factories in Ohio.

Lambert held over 600 patents in his career, most to do with the automobile. Some notable examples of his inventions, and patents:

The first gasoline engine automobile in the United States

A friction transmission for automobiles

A corn seeder that planted three seeds at a time, his first patent (registered in 1876 when he was 16)

Lambert married Mary F. Kelly in 1884. She was from Ansonia, Ohio They had two sons, E. Moe and Roy, who were associated with him in business.

Lambert died in Anderson, Indiana, on May 20, 1952. Lambert Days is a community celebration that honors the life of John W. Lambert, the first gasoline-powered single-cylinder vehicle, and the world's first car wreck. This is an annual three-day event that takes place in Ohio City, Ohio, on the third weekend of July. Activities and events include a car show, art festival, flea market, sporting events, parade, live entertainment, and Lambert automobile displays.

Benton, William, ed. (1983). "John William Lambert". The New Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. 2. New York City: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Forkner, John La Rue (1914). History of Madison County, Indiana. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company.

Lucendo, Jorge (2019). Cars of Legend. McFarland & Company.

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John William Lambert (January 29, 1860 - May 20, 1952) was an American automobile manufacturer pioneer and inventor. He is the inventor of the first practical American gasoline automobile. He operated large manufacturing companies that made transmissions, stationary gas engines, farm tractors, commercial motor trucks, railroad inspection vehicles, and various gasoline driven street cars.

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Joseph McVicker was born in 1929 to Irma McVicker and Cleo McVicker. With Cleo McVicker's death in 1949, Irma McVicker hired her son, Joseph, and her son-in-law, Bill Rhodenbaugh, to head Kutol Products Company, a Cincinnati, Ohio firm, formerly headed by Cleo, that produced soap and wallpaper cleaner. Joseph McVicker soon realized that Kutol Products' wallpaper cleaner also could be used as a pliable modeling clay. In 1955, he tested the product in Cincinnati-area schools and daycares. The following year, the Woodward & Lothrop Department Store in Washington, D.C began to sell the clay, which McVicker had named Play-Doh. Joseph McVicker and his uncle, Noah McVicker, applied for a patent for Play-Doh in 1958, but the United States Patent Office did not officially patent the clay until January 26, 1965.

In 1956, Joseph McVicker and his uncle, Noah McVicker, created the Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc. The sole purpose of this company was to manufacture and sell Play-Doh. Originally Play-Doh came in 1.5 pound boxes and was an off-white color. The company also quickly offered red, yellow, and blue Play-Doh in gallon cans. Due to the large size of the packaging, the Rainbow Crafts Company began selling Play-Doh in eleven ounce packages. Kutol Products continued to manufacture soap and other cleaners, but Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., became the sole manufacturer of Play-Doh.

In 1965, General Mills purchased the Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., and all rights to Play-Doh. Joseph McVicker retired from his life as a businessman at this time. He was a millionaire at the time of his retirement. McVicker decided to become a minister and enrolled in Harvard Divinity School. He died in 1992.

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Joseph McVicker was born in 1929 to Irma McVicker and Cleo McVicker. With Cleo McVicker's death in 1949, Irma McVicker hired her son, Joseph, and her son-in-law, Bill Rhodenbaugh, to head Kutol Products Company, a Cincinnati, Ohio firm, formerly headed by Cleo, that produced soap and wallpaper cleaner.

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In 1949, Irma McVicker hired her son, Joseph McVicker, and her son-in-law, Bill Rhodenbaugh, to head Kutol Products Company, a Cincinnati, Ohio, firm that produced soap and wallpaper cleaner. Joseph McVicker soon realized that Kutol Products' wallpaper cleaner also could be used as a pliable modeling clay. In 1955, he tested the product in Cincinnati-area schools and daycares. The following year, the Woodward & Lothrop Department Store in Washington, DC, began to sell the clay, which McVicker had named Play-Doh. Noah and Joseph McVicker applied for a patent for Play-Doh in 1958, but the United States Patent Office did not officially patent the clay until January 26, 1965.

In 1956, Joseph McVicker and his uncle, Noah McVicker, created the Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc. The sole purpose of this company was to manufacture and sell Play-Doh. Originally Play-Doh came in 1.5 pound boxes and was an off-white color. The company also quickly offered red, yellow, and blue Play-Doh in gallon cans. Due to the large size of the packaging, the Rainbow Crafts Company began selling Play-Doh in eleven ounce packages. Kutol Products continued to manufacture soap and other cleaners, but Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., became the sole manufacturer of Play-Doh.

In 1965, General Mills purchased the Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., and all rights to Play-Doh. Six years later, Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., and Kenner Products, both subsidiaries of General Mills, merged together. General Mills continued to manufacture the clay until Tonka Corporation purchased Kenner and Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc., in 1987. In 1991, the current producer of Play-Doh, Hasbro, acquired all rights to Play-Doh and Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc. Since Play-Doh's discovery in 1955, the various manufacturers have added numerous additional colors.

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In 1949, Irma McVicker hired her son, Joseph McVicker, and her son-in-law, Bill Rhodenbaugh, to head Kutol Products Company, a Cincinnati, Ohio, firm that produced soap and wallpaper cleaner. Joseph McVicker soon realized that Kutol Products' wallpaper cleaner also could be used as a pliable modeling clay.

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The Truth About Why Play-Doh Was Created

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Garrett Augustus Morgan

Garrett Augustus Morgan was born on March 4, 1877, in Paris, Kentucky. He attended elementary school in Kentucky, but he spent most of his time working on his parents' farm. His parents were former slaves. As a teenager, Morgan moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he hired a personal tutor and worked different jobs to support himself.

In 1895, Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He took a position as a sewing-machine repairman. Twelve years later, Morgan had accumulated enough money to begin his own sewing machine-repair business. Over the next several years, Morgan expanded his business interests to include a tailoring establishment, a personal-grooming products company, and also a newspaper, the Cleveland Call. By 1920, Morgan had become a wealthy man with dozens of workers in his employ.

Morgan was always interested in inventions. His tailoring business was equipped with machines that he personally designed. During the 1910s and 1920s, Morgan continued to invent new items. Most of these items were to improve safety on the streets and in the workplace. Morgan was most famous for patenting the first traffic signal in the United States. Morgan, himself an automobile owner, witnessed a crash between a car and a buggy. This event supposedly convinced the inventor to create the stoplight. On November 20, 1923, Morgan received his patent. His traffic signal was mounted on a T-shaped pole. It had three different types of signals stop, go, and stop in all directions. The stop in all directions signal was to allow pedestrians to cross streets safely. Morgan eventually patented this device in Canada and Great Britain as well. He sold his patent to General Electric Corporation for forty thousand dollars.

Morgan also invented numerous other products. In 1916, he patented his version of the gas mask. Morgan demonstrated his superior design when a group of miners were trapped in a shaft under Lake Erie. He immediately received orders for his product from fire departments and mine owners across the United States and Europe. The United States Army also utilized a slightly redesigned Morgan gas mask during World War I. In addition to the traffic signal and the gas mask, Morgan also invented a zigzag stitching device for manually-operated sewing machines.

Morgan died on August 27, 1963.

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Garrett Augustus Morgan Garrett Augustus Morgan was born on March 4, 1877, in Paris, Kentucky. He attended elementary school in Kentucky, but he spent most of his time working on his parents' farm. His parents were former slaves. As a teenager, Morgan moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he hired a personal tutor and worked different jobs to support himself.

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Leaders in Innovation

While many inventors are known primarily for one innovation, National Inventors Hall of Fame ® (NIHF) Inductee Garrett Morgan has the distinction of inventing two different technologies that continue to benefit people to this day: the safety hood, a forerunner of the gas mask, and the three-way traffic signal.

In 1891, Morgan left home for Cincinnati in search of job opportunities, and he landed one as a handyman. After four years he moved to Cleveland, where he took a job sweeping floors at the Roots and McBribe Company and eventually taught himself how to fix the company's broken sewing machines. Morgan quickly developed into a gifted machinist and tinkerer. These skills allowed him to open his own business: the Morgan Skirt Factory. There, his new wife Mary sewed clothes, and he both built and maintained the sewing machines.

Throughout his life, Morgan broke barriers and was an advocate for racial equality. In addition to forming one of the first Black fraternities in the country at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, he persevered during a time in America when Jim Crow era discrimination ran rampant. Fortunately, Morgan overcame all obstacles in his path, and at NIHF, we are proud to celebrate his legacy.

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The Inspiring Perseverance of Garrett Morgan

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Leaders in Innovation While many inventors are known primarily for one innovation, National Inventors Hall of Fame ® (NIHF) Inductee Garrett Morgan has the distinction of inventing two different technologies that continue to benefit people to this day: the safety hood, a forerunner of the gas mask, and the three-way traffic signal.

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Charles F. Richter - Ohio History Central

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Mountain View Mortuary, Cemetery, and Crematory

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Mountain View Presents: CHARLES F. RICHTER

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Charles F. Richter is remembered every time an earthquake happens. With German-born seismologist Beno Gutenberg, Richter developed the scale that bears his name and measures the magnitude of earthquakes. Richter was a pioneer in seismological research at a time when data on the size and location of earthquakes were scarce.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Charles F. Richter, in full Charles Francis Richter, (born April 26, 1900, near Hamilton, Ohio, U.S.-died September 30, 1985, Pasadena, California), American physicist and seismologist who developed the Richter scale for measuring earthquake magnitude.

Born on an Ohio farm, Richter moved with his mother to Los Angeles in 1916. He attended the University of Southern California (1916-17) and then studied physics at Stanford University (A.B., 1920) and the California Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1928). Richter was on the staff of the Seismological Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Pasadena, California (1927-36), and then taught both physics and seismology at Caltech (1937-70) and worked at its Seismological Laboratory (founded in 1936).

With Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960), a German-born Caltech professor, he developed in 1935 the magnitude scale that came to be associated with his name. Based on instrumental recording of ground motion, it provided a quantitative measure of earthquake size and complemented the older Mercalli scale, which was based on an earthquake's reported intensity. Richter also mapped out quake-prone areas in the United States, though he disparaged attempts at earthquake prediction. He wrote (with Beno Gutenberg) Seismicity of the Earth and Associated Phenomena (1949) and Elementary Seismology (1958). He also wrote the article "Earthquakes" for the 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (first published 1974).

Amy Tikkanen.

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Charles F. Richter, American physicist and seismologist who developed the Richter scale for measuring earthquake magnitude. Born on an Ohio farm, Richter moved with his mother to Los Angeles in 1916. He attended the University of Southern California (1916-17) and then studied physics at Stanford

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Brothers James and John Ritty developed a working version of a mechanical cash register for use at James' saloon in Dayton, Ohio.

In 1878, while on a steamboat trip in Europe, James Ritty became intrigued by a mechanism that counted the revolutions of the ship's propeller. He wondered if something like this could be made to record cash transactions at the saloon he owned. By using a machine to record each sale, he determined it would be possible for both the employer and the customer to check and audit each transaction.

Upon his arrival back home in Dayton, Ritty and his brother John began working on a design for such a device. They worked on several versions, and their third prototype was a success. It operated by pressing a key that represented a specific amount of money. There was no cash drawer yet with their design. Continuing to improve their innovation, the Ritty brothers opened a small factory in Dayton to manufacture cash registers. James Ritty soon became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of operating two businesses and sold the interest in the cash register business to others who renamed the company the National Cash Register Company, later known as NCR.

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NIHF Inductee James Ritty Invented the Mechanical Cash Register

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Brothers James and John Ritty developed a working version of a mechanical cash register for use at James' saloon in Dayton, Ohio. In 1878, while on a steamboat trip in Europe, James Ritty became intrigued by a mechanism that counted the revolutions of the ship's propeller.

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This is a photograph of the first National Cash register ever used. It was used at the Miners' Supply Co. in Coalton, Ohio.

James Ritty was born on October 29, 1836, in Dayton, Ohio. As a young man he briefly attended college to study medicine, but with the American Civil War's outbreak, Ritty left school and enlisted in the Fourth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry as a first lieutenant. He served honorably for three years, leaving the Union Army in 1864, having attained the rank of captain.

In 1871, Ritty became a saloon owner in Dayton. Unfortunately for Ritty, some of his employees stole money from the business. In 1878, while on a ship bound for Europe, Ritty saw a machine that counted the number of times that the ship's propeller completed a revolution. Using the same sort of technology, Ritty became convinced that he could invent a machine that could keep track of his sales. He returned to the United States, and with the assistance of his brother, a mechanic, he invented the first cash register. He patented his invention on November 4, 1879, and called it "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." Ritty's machine did not have a cash drawer. Instead, it simply recorded the number of sales and also the amount of each one. This machine allowed Ritty to keep accurate track of the number of sales and the amount of each sale that was made.

Upon patenting his invention, Ritty established a company to manufacture the cash registers in Dayton. Unfortunately, Ritty's invention did not draw much enthusiasm from other business owners, and Ritty's new company quickly closed. Ritty eventually sold his patent to a group of Ohio investors. Among them was John H. Patterson, who eventually turned Ritty's invention into a fortune. In 1884, Patterson founded the National Cash Register Company.

After selling his patent, Ritty remained in the bar business. He finally retired in 1895, primarily due to poor health. He remained in Dayton for the rest of his life, dying on March 29, 1918.

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This is a photograph of the first National Cash register ever used. It was used at the Miners' Supply Co. in Coalton, Ohio. James Ritty was born on October 29, 1836, in Dayton, Ohio.

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To all whom it may concern:

Be it know that, I, WILLIAM F. SEMPLE, of Mount Vernon, county of Knox, and State of Ohio, have invented a new and improved Chewing-Gum; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.
The nature of my invention consists in compounding with rubber, in any proportions, other suitable substances, so as to form not only an agreeable chewing-gum, but also, that from the scouring-properties of the same, it will subserve the purpose of a dentifrice. It is well known that rubber itself is too hard to be used as a chewing-gum, but in combination with non-adhesive earths may be rendered capable of kneading into any shape under the teeth.
In the manufacture of this improved chewing-gum, no vulcanizing-process is employed. It is produced by simply dissolving the rubber in naphtha and alcohol, and when of the consistence of jelly, mixing with it prepared chalk, powdered licorice-root, or any other suitable material, in the desired proportions, and subsequently evaporating the solvents.
I do not, however, confine myself to this method alone for the manufacture of the gum. For commercial purposes, other equally effectual processes maybe used for the uniting of the rubber with suitable substances. Instead of the solvents named, any other that will soften the rubber, without being offensive, may be employed, such as paraffine, spermaceti, wax, gums, resins, and the like. Any of the materials commonly used for the manufacture of dentifrices may be combined with the rubber, such as orris-root, myrrh, licorice-root, sugar, barytes, charcoal, &c.
By the term "rubber," I wish to include the allied vegetable gums, which are ordinarily known as the equivalents of caoutchouc.
Having thus fully described my invention,
What I claim as new, and, desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-
The combination of rubber with other articles, in any proportions adapted to the formation of an acceptable chewing-gum.

W. F. SEMPLE.

Witnesses:

C. MAGERS,
T. V. PARKE.

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To all whom it may concern: Be it know that, I, WILLIAM F. SEMPLE, of Mount Vernon, county of Knox, and State of Ohio, have invented a new and improved Chewing-Gum; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

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Another Ohioan, Dr. Edward E. Beeman, gave the world one of the most popular kinds of chewing gum. Consumers today buy millions of dollars worth of Beeman's Pepsin Chewing Gum each year. Dr. Beeman was selling bottles of powdered pepsin, which people took to aid to digestion. Pepsin is an enzyme found naturally in the stomach that breaks down proteins. Nellie Horton, Dr. Beeman's bookkeeper, suggested that he put the pepsin into gum "since so many people buy pepsin for digestion and gum for no reason at all." He blended his pepsin compound with chicle, a natural substance obtained from the sapodilla tree, which is used in chewing gum. He sold the gum in a wrapper that showed the picture of a pig and carried the slogan, "With Pepsin, You Can Eat Like A Pig." The gum sold even better after a businessman bought the company and replaced the pig with a wrapper showing Dr. Beeman's kindly bearded face.

Who Dunnit? Who Really Dunnit?
Who "invented" chewing gum? Does Ohioan William F. Semple really deserve the credit? Or should credit go to other individuals - maybe John B. Curtis who in 1848 sold the first commercial chewing gum in the United States. It was made from tree sap and called "State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum." What about Thomas Adams, who in 1871 patented the chewing gum that people now spend about $2 billion a year on. Adams' recipe also used chicle, along with sugar and sassafras flavoring. Chicle gave gum the right chewing properties, and eliminated the harsh taste and unpleasant texture in Semple's gum. His Chiclets, those little chunks of gum with a hard sugar coating, are still best-sellers. Adams also invented the first machine for mass producing gum.

People had been chewing gum for thousands of years before inventors like William F. Semple, John B. Curtis, or Thomas Adams lived. The ancient Greeks munched on chewed mastic gum, or mastiche, (pronounced "mas-tee-ka"). They made it with sticky resin obtained from the bark of the mastic plant, a shrub-like tree. The ancient Maya chewed sapodilla tree sap - the same chicle used in modern chewing gum. Humans probably always have had the urge to chew to keep their mouths moist when no water was available, or, psychologists think, because it brings back memories of nursing when they were infants.

Ohio can claim credit for an invention with global impact because Semple got the first patent on chewing gum. It was U. S. patent 93,304, issued on December 28, 1869. A patent is a document, granted by the government, which gives the inventor right -- for a limited period -- to stop others from making, using, or selling the invention without the inventor's permission. Patents cover products or processes that work in new ways or have new features. They involve how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of, and how they are made.

A patent officially makes an invention the inventor's property. Like any other kind of property, the inventor can sell the patent to someone else or "rent" it. Renting out a patent is called "licensing" it. The owner charges a fee - a royalty - for others to use the patent so they can make and sell a product.

Remember that a patent doesn't automatically stop others from using the invention. It just gives an inventor the right to sue others who do, in a so-called "patent infringement" suit.

Semple's patent became a milestone in chewing gum history, an official record of his role. Because it was the first for chewing gum, the patent makes it convenient for people to identify Semple as chewing gum's inventor. We don't know if other chewing gum pioneers ever paid Semple royalties to use ideas in U. S. Patent 93,304.

Inventors often tweak the technology in an existing patent, making changes and improvements that allow them to get their own patent. The huge majority of new patents granted each year are for small improvements in existing technology. In science and technology, the wheels of progress turn a fraction of an inch at a time, and innovation usually is evolution rather than revolution.
Fun Factoids About Chewing Gum

The American colonists chewed the gum-like sap or resin that oozes out of cuts in the bark of spruce trees. Native Americans chewed that gum for as long as anyone could remember. People later chewed paraffin wax sweetened with sugar and honey.

Modern chewing gum emerged from a flop. American inventor Thomas Adams tried for a whole year to use chicle as a substitute for rubber in waterproof boots, rainwear, and toys. Adams was frustrated when the experiments failed, and ready to toss the remaining chicle into the East River in New York City. Then a chance visit to a drug store and a little girl gave him that flash of inspiration.

ABC gum (Already Been Chewed) has legendary properties as a quick fix-it for all kinds of emergency repairs that demand sticky material. Anecdotes tell of people using it to repair everything from broken dishware to the hydraulic lines in airplanes.

Wrigley's gum got its start when William Wrigley Jr. offered Chicago merchants free chewing gum with each can of his baking powder. The gum became more popular than the baking power. In 1893 he started selling two of the most popular gums in history -- Juicy Fruit and Wrigley's Spearmint Gum.

Chewing gum was originally made from the natural gum chicle, found in the sapodilla tree. Chicle is expensive, however, and other natural gums and chewy synthetic materials also are used in gum today.

If you think gum is a trivial product, chew on this: Americans buy more than $2 billion worth of chewing gum each year.

Dr. Grandma and Dr. Mom were wrong about chewing gum. It won't necessarily ruin your teeth. Studies have shown that chewing sugarless gum sweetened with xylitol has an antibacterial action. It fights bacteria that cause tooth decay. Gum also increases the flow of saliva, which dilutes acid produced by bacteria. Saliva also contains calcium and phosphorous minerals that can help to repair soft spots in tooth enamel, actually healing early tooth decay.

People chew gum only one tiny stick at a time, but companies make it by the ton. Check out the Wrigley manufacturing process online

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William Finley Semple (1832-1923), of Mount Vernon, got the first United States Patent on chewing gum in 1869. Semple's process involved dissolving vegetable gums in naphtha and alcohol until they reached the consistency of jelly. Then he mixed in powdered chalk, powdered licorice root, and other ma

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James Spangler invented the first commercially successful portable electric vacuum cleaner, an invention that revolutionized household carpet cleaning.

Spangler was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Ohio at an early age. While working as a janitor in a Canton, Ohio department store, Spangler developed a better carpet sweeper. He tinkered with an old fan motor, attached it to a soapbox stapled to a broom handle, and used a pillowcase as a dust collector. Spangler's vacuum cleaner was the first to use both a cloth filter bag and cleaning attachments. He improved this basic model and received a patent for it in 1908.

Spangler formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company to manufacture his new vacuum cleaner. One of his first customers was his own cousin, who was married to William Hoover, a saddle maker and leather merchant who was impressed with Spangler's vacuum cleaner. Hoover invested in the inventor's business and patents and became president of the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. Hoover renamed the company the Hoover Company in 1922, and Spangler worked at the company as superintendent of day-to-day operations.

Under the Hoover name, Spangler's original vacuum was continually improved in the twentieth century. Today, the Hoover Company is a multi-million dollar business and common household name.

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NIHF Inductee James Spangler Invented the Portable Vacuum Cleaner

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search James Spangler invented the first commercially successful portable electric vacuum cleaner, an invention that revolutionized household carpet cleaning. Spangler was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Ohio at an early age. While working as a janitor in a Canton, Ohio department store, Spangler developed a better carpet sweeper.

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James Murray Spangler (November 20, 1848-January 22, 1915) Courtesy of Hoover Historical Center/Walsh University, North Canton, Ohio

While working as a janitor at a department store in Canton, Ohio, James Murray Spangler invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner's design was upright, and it used a cloth bag to collect the dirt that was vacuumed up. Spangler first tested his invention in 1907 and patented it after a number of modifications in 1908. He founded the Electric Suction Sweeper Company to manufacture his design.

Ultimately, Spangler's invention became known as the Hoover vacuum cleaner. William Hoover was married to Spangler's first cousin, who purchased one of Spangler's early models. Intrigued by the new machine, Hoover invested in Spangler's company. He eventually became president of the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. In 1922, Hoover renamed the company the Hoover Company. Under Hoover's direction, many improvements were made in the design of the vacuum cleaner and new sales strategies were tested. The Hoover Company, with its headquarters based in North Canton, Ohio, became one of the most successful and well-known vacuum cleaner manufacturers in the world. Hoover's success means that most people today associate the vacuum cleaner with him, rather than with Spangler.

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James Murray Spangler (November 20, 1848-January 22, 1915) Courtesy of Hoover Historical Center/Walsh University, North Canton, Ohio While working as a janitor at a department store in Canton, Ohio, James Murray Spangler invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner's design was upright, and it used a cloth bag to collect the dirt that was vacuumed up.

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Henry Timken invented the Timken® tapered roller bearing. He found that conventional bearings of the 19th century worked well at reducing friction, but ran into problems when the wheels had to bear heavy loads from the sides, as when vehicles turn. So, in 1895, with the help of his two sons and a nephew, he began experiments to make a better bearing. He developed Timken tapered roller bearings to bear the heavy side loads.

Born in Bremen, Germany, Timken and his family immigrated to the U.S. when he was seven, settling in Missouri. As a teenager, Timken became an apprentice to a leading carriage and wagon maker. Eventually, he established his own carriage factory in St. Louis. In 1877, Timken converted the factory to make the "Timken Buggy Spring" which was in world demand.

In 1898, he received two roller bearing patents, and in 1899, he established The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company in a corner of his factory. The company grew so quickly that Timken decided to build a plant and relocate to Canton, Ohio to be near the emerging automotive industry.

In the 1920s, The Timken Company was making 90 percent of the country's bearings. By the early 1990s, they supplied nearly a third of the world's tapered roller bearings.

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NIHF Inductee Henry Timken Invented the Tapered Roller Bearing

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Henry Timken invented the Timken® tapered roller bearing. He found that conventional bearings of the 19th century worked well at reducing friction, but ran into problems when the wheels had to bear heavy loads from the sides, as when vehicles turn.

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The Timken Company is an important employer in Canton, Ohio.

In 1899, Henry Timken and his sons, H.H. Timken and William Timken, established the Timken Roller Bearing and Axle Company in St. Louis, Missouri. This firm initially manufactured tapered roller bearings for the use in wagons. Timken's bearings helped wagons make easier turns and also improved their maneuverability in other ways. In 1901, the Timkens relocated the company to Canton, Ohio, where the firm became known as the Timken Roller Bearing Company.

The Timken Company's bearings became in great demand, especially as the automotive industry originated during the first decades of the twentieth century. Timken bearings were used in the Marmon Wasp, the first car to win the Indy 500. In 1917, the Timken Company constructed its first steel mill to provide the firm with a steady supply of steel to manufacture its products. Beginning in the 1920s, the company increasingly began to use its bearings in the manufacture of agricultural and mining equipment, and during World War II, besides providing the United States military with bearings, the business also manufactured gun barrels and steel tubing.

Today, the Timken Company has expanded across the world. The firm maintains plants in India, China, Great Britain, France, the United States of America, South Africa, and several other nations. The company topped five billion dollars in sales in 2005, and the Timken Company remains as one of Canton's most profitable businesses and largest employers.

References

Pruitt, Bettye H. Timken: From Missouri to Mars - A Century of Leadership in Manufacturing. N.p.: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

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The Timken Company is an important employer in Canton, Ohio. In 1899, Henry Timken and his sons, H.H. Timken and William Timken, established the Timken Roller Bearing and Axle Company in St. Louis, Missouri. This firm initially manufactured tapered roller bearings for the use in wagons.

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Henry Timken (August 16, 1831 in Bremen, Germany - March 16, 1909 in San Diego, California) was an inventor and businessman who founded the Timken Roller Bearing Company, later called the Timken Company. His family migrated to the United States when he was 7 years old. He began his business career in the St. Louis region. His inventions of an improved carriage spring and an improved roller bearing brought him the money needed to create a company dedicated to the latter.

Henry Timken was born in Bremen, now in Germany, and emigrated to the United States with his family when he was seven years old. The Timkens settled in Sedalia, Missouri; Henry left the family farm to apprentice under carriage-builder Caspar Schurmeier. Timken opened his own carriage-building company in St. Louis in 1855, and introduced several improvements to the carriages his firm produced, including his patented "Timken buggy spring", which made him a fortune.

He patented an improved tapered roller bearing in 1898. A year later, he established the Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company which grew rapidly as the product was in great demand by cars, trucks, and tractors. By 1923, 90% of the country's production of bearings came from Timken. His slogan " Wherever wheels and shafts turn", describes the widespread use for bearings-trains, conveyors, elevators, aircraft engines, even space shuttle landing wheels.

He first retired in 1887 and settled in San Diego, California, but regretted retiring in 1891 and went back to St Louis. He later returned to San Diego for a second retirement before dying there in 1909. The Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park bears his family's name, as it was established with his fortune.

Timken was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame on September 19, 1998. Henry Timken was one of six inducted into the hall of fame at ceremonies done at the E J Thomas Hall in Akron, Ohio. William Robert Timken Jr., Timken's great-grandson, the retired chairman and chief executive officer of The Timken Co, and who was the United States Ambassador to Germany, received the award on behalf of his great-grandfather.

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Henry Timken (August 16, 1831 in Bremen, Germany - March 16, 1909 in San Diego, California) was an inventor and businessman who founded the Timken Roller Bearing Company, later called the Timken Company. His family migrated to the United States when he was 7 years old. He began his business career in the St.

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John Butler Tytus, Jr. (1875-1944) was the inventor of the first practical wide-strip continuous rolling process for manufacturing steel. This process greatly reduced the cost of manufacturing steel, and was first implemented in a new Armco plant in 1924. By 1940, twenty-six plants had been built. He was a Yale University graduate but learned the steel business from the ground up. His home in Middletown, Ohio, the John B. Tytus House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

John B. Tytus was born in Middletown, Ohio on December 6, 1875. His father owned a paper mill, which Tytus found fascinating as child. He attended the common schools until age fourteen. He then attended Westminster prep school at Dobbs Ferry, New York, which prepared him for admission to Yale University. He graduated from Yale in 1897 with a bachelor's degree in English literature and returned to Middletown to work in the family paper mill. Soon afterward, his father died and his family sold the mill. He went to work with a bridge builder at Dayton, Ohio.

In 1904 he left the bridge builder to work for a steel mill in his hometown as a spare hand. He quickly learned about steel rolling and earned the respect of his coworkers. He always remembered the way the Fourdrinier machines produced paper rolls, and began to consider ways in which the process of steel rolling could be made more efficient. After eighteen months, he became the assistant of the sheet mill superintendent, Charlie Hook. During this time and afterwards, Tytus continued to research and think about improving steel rolling. In 1906 he was promoted to superintendent of the new mill in Zanesville, Ohio. The following year, he married Marjorie Denny. At the end of 1909, he was chosen to plan and activate Armco's East Works plant at Middletown as chief of operations.

In 1919 he had readied blueprints for a new plant incorporating techniques for continuous steel rolling, but the opportunity to put these plans into practice did not arise until 1921. He presented his plans and Armco made the difficult decision to implement them. The continuous rolling steel mill he designed and built began operation in Ashland in 1924 and became a model for the industry. In 1927 Tytus was made vice-president of Armco, and in 1935 he received the Gary Memorial Award from the American Iron and Steel Institute. He died of a heart attack on June 2, 1944.

In 2012 Tytus was inducted into the American Metal Market Steel Hall of Fame, Class of 2012 ( http://www.amm.com/HOF-Profile/JohnBTytus.html) for his invention of the first workable wide-strip continuous rolling process for making steel.

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John Butler Tytus, Jr. (1875-1944) was the inventor of the first practical wide-strip continuous rolling process for manufacturing steel. This process greatly reduced the cost of manufacturing steel, and was first implemented in a new Armco plant in 1924. By 1940, twenty-six plants had been built.

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NIHF Inductee Granville Woods Invented Railroad Telegraphy

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National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee Granville Woods developed railroad telegraphy, a way to transmit messages through static electricity between moving trains.

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Reproduction of a portrait of African American inventor Granville T. Woods. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1856. From 1884 to 1890 he and his brother operated a machine shop in Cincinnati, Ohio. Woods received 35 patents for electrical and mechanical devices between 1884 and 1907.

Granville T. Woods was an African-American inventor and was born on April 23, 1856, in Columbus, Ohio. He left school when he was ten years old and went to work to help support his family. Woods became an apprentice to a machinist. He learned blacksmithing and how to invent and repair machines. Woods continued his education by attending night school.

In 1872, Woods became a fireman on the Danville and Southern Railroad in Missouri. He was later promoted to engineer. After only two years with the railroad, Woods moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he accepted a position with a steel mill. By 1878, he had become an engineer on the Ironsides, a British steamship. Within two years, he had become the ship's chief engineer.

In all of the positions that he held, Woods experienced discrimination because of his race. Unhappy with his inability to obtain higher positions, Woods moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he established his own machine shop in 1880. The shop eventually became the Woods Electrical Company. Woods devoted his energies to developing an improved steam boiler in 1884. He also invented the first electric railway that was powered with electric lines from above the train. Previously the lines had run along the tracks and been quite dangerous to pedestrians. In addition to these inventions, Woods also created the first telegraph service that allowed messages to be sent from moving trains. This invention dramatically improved railroad safety. Woods also invented several improvements to the airbrakes used on locomotives and other large machines.

Woods sold his inventions to a number of companies, including the American Bell Telephone Company and the General Electric Company. By the time of his death on July 30, 1910, Woods had received more than sixty patents.

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Reproduction of a portrait of African American inventor Granville T. Woods. Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1856. From 1884 to 1890 he and his brother operated a machine shop in Cincinnati, Ohio. Woods received 35 patents for electrical and mechanical devices between 1884 and 1907. Granville T.

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Orville and Wilbur Wright, American inventors and aviation pioneers, achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight of an airplane. The Wright brothers are considered inseparable in their aeronautical work. Wilbur was born in Millville, Indiana; Orville in Dayton, Ohio. They were the sons of a bishop of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Both completed high school courses, but neither graduated formally.

As youngsters, they read many technical articles and books in their spare time. They also were deeply interested in the idea of mechanical flight and read about Otto Lilienthal's successful gliding experiments in Germany. In 1893 the brothers opened a shop for the sale, repair, and manufacture of bicycles. Income from the shop supported them during the early years of their aeronautical experiments. From their studies and observations, the brothers theoretically solved the problem of lateral stability. They then built their first machine in 1899, a biplane kite, which they fitted with wings that could be mechanically twisted.

Before attempting a powered flight, they decided to master gliding and built three biplane gliders, which they flew at Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They completed their first powered machine, the Kitty Hawk, in 1903, and made history's first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flights from level ground without assistance at takeoff on the morning of December 17, 1903.

This first plane had a 12-horsepower engine running at 1,200 rpm and weighing 170 pounds. It also had propellers designed by the Wrights which exceeded their theoretical calculations.

After the first flight, the Wright brothers conducted further experiments in Dayton. By the end of 1904, they could stay in the air for five minutes, and in 1905, they sustained flight for over 24 miles.

In 1908 they were able to conclude an agreement for production of the Wright airplane for the U.S. Army. Wilbur made the first public flight on August 8, 1908 in France and continued his exhibition flights there to the end of that year, establishing many distance and altitude records.

Both the brothers died bachelors; aviation had been their only passion. In 1948, the original Wright plane was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It serves to emphasize the fact that the Wright brothers were true aviation pioneers, bridging the gap between downhill gliding flight and sustained power flight.

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National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee Wilbur Wright and the Airplane

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Orville and Wilbur Wright, American inventors and aviation pioneers, achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight of an airplane. The Wright brothers are considered inseparable in their aeronautical work. Wilbur was born in Millville, Indiana; Orville in Dayton, Ohio.

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Orville and Wilbur Wright, American inventors and aviation pioneers, achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight of an airplane. The Wright brothers are considered inseparable in their aeronautical work. Wilbur was born in Millville, Indiana; Orville in Dayton, Ohio. They were the sons of a bishop of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Both completed high school courses, but neither graduated formally.

As youngsters, they read many technical articles and books in their spare time. They also were deeply interested in the idea of mechanical flight and read about Otto Lilienthal's successful gliding experiments in Germany. In 1893 the brothers opened a shop for the sale, repair, and manufacture of bicycles. Income from the shop supported them during the early years of their aeronautical experiments. From their studies and observations, the brothers theoretically solved the problem of lateral stability. They then built their first machine in 1899, a biplane kite, which they fitted with wings that could be mechanically twisted.

Before attempting a powered flight, they decided to master gliding and built three biplane gliders, which they flew at Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They completed their first powered machine, the Kitty Hawk, in 1903, and made history's first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flights from level ground without assistance at takeoff on the morning of December 17, 1903.

This first plane had a 12-horsepower engine running at 1,200 rpm and weighing 170 pounds. It also had propellers designed by the Wrights which exceeded their theoretical calculations.

After the first flight, the Wright brothers conducted further experiments in Dayton. By the end of 1904, they could stay in the air for five minutes, and in 1905, they sustained flight for over 24 miles.

In 1908 they were able to conclude an agreement for production of the Wright airplane for the U.S. Army. Wilbur made the first public flight on August 8, 1908 in France and continued his exhibition flights there to the end of that year, establishing many distance and altitude records.

Both the brothers died bachelors; aviation had been their only passion. In 1948, the original Wright plane was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It serves to emphasize the fact that the Wright brothers were true aviation pioneers, bridging the gap between downhill gliding flight and sustained power flight.

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National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee Orville Wright and the Airplane

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Pause all videos Back to Inductee Search Orville and Wilbur Wright, American inventors and aviation pioneers, achieved the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight of an airplane. The Wright brothers are considered inseparable in their aeronautical work. Wilbur was born in Millville, Indiana; Orville in Dayton, Ohio.

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Orville Wright, Major John F. Curry, and Colonel Charles Lindbergh, who came to pay Orville a personal call at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. June 22, 1927

Aviator Orville Wright was born on August 19, 1871, in Dayton, Ohio. His parents were Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catharine Wright. Orville Wright was the Wrights' fourth child. He attended the local public schools with his siblings but never graduated from high school or attended college.

Wright and his brother Wilbur were continually looking for new challenges. As young men, the two brothers went into business together. At one point, they opened a print shop. They also began making bicycles in their own bicycle shop, in part because of Orville's talents as a bicyclist. These bicycles were called Wright Flyers. The Wright brothers had an interest in flight that had been sparked by a toy shaped like a helicopter that their father had given them as children. As adults, the two men were interested in gliders like those built by Otto Lilienthal. Wilbur and his brother began experimenting with wing designs for an airplane. They envisioned a bi-plane that could be guided by warping the wings.

Orville and Wilbur Wright continued to experiment with their airplane designs, first with gliders and eventually with powered flight. Their first successful flight of a powered airplane occurred at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. That first plane was very primitive, but within a few years, the Wright brothers, as well as other aircraft designers, had begun to make many improvements. The first flight only lasted twelve seconds and traveled 120 feet, but a later flight that day lasted fifty-nine seconds and traveled 852 feet.

Many Americans, including journalists, did not believe the story of the Wright brothers' first flight. Only five Ohio newspapers covered the story originally, because the others refused to believe that flight was possible. That skepticism proved to be short-lived, and Americans became very interested in news stories about airplanes. In the short term, the Wrights found it difficult to obtain funding for their efforts. They attempted to sell their design to the United States military, but the government was still too skeptical about the possibilities of flight. By 1908 and 1909, Wilbur Wright was gaining international attention for the brothers' designs by setting aeronautical records in France. He also sought newspaper coverage by flying around the Statue of Liberty and then flying along the Hudson River. Throughout this time period, the Wright brothers were continuing to develop new advances in aeronautical design.

Wilbur Wright's promise was cut short when he contracted typhoid fever. He died on May 30, 1912. Orville continued to work on new developments in aircraft design after Wilbur's death. In 1916, he chose to sell the company that he and his brother had founded so that he could concentrate on aeronautical research and design rather than on manufacturing.

Orville Wright was one of the original members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which was founded in 1929. He served on NACA for a total of twenty-eight years. Today, NACA is known as the predecessor to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Wright received the first Daniel Guggenheim Medal for "great achievements in aeronautics" in April 1930. In the same month, he was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Although the world was originally skeptical of the Wright brothers' accomplishments, Orville Wright lived long enough to see that he and his brother were credited for the full influence of their accomplishments.

Orville Wright died in Dayton, Ohio, on January 30, 1948. He was seventy-six years old.

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Orville Wright, Major John F. Curry, and Colonel Charles Lindbergh, who came to pay Orville a personal call at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. June 22, 1927 Aviator Orville Wright was born on August 19, 1871, in Dayton, Ohio. His parents were Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catharine Wright.

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Reproduction of a portrait of inventor Wilbur Wright from Dayton, Ohio, ca. 1900-1912. Wilbur and his brother Orville built and flew the first mechanically powered airplane.

Aviator Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867, in Millville, Indiana. His parents were Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catharine Wright. Wilbur Wright was the third of the Wrights' four children. When Wright was only a child, the family moved to Dayton, Ohio. He attended the local public schools with his siblings but never graduated from high school or attended college.

Wright and his brother Orville were continually looking for new challenges. As young men, the two brothers went into business together. At one point, they opened a print shop. They also began making bicycles in their own bicycle shop. These bicycles were called Wright Flyers. The Wright brothers had an interest in flight that had been sparked by a toy shaped like a helicopter that their father had given them as children. As adults, the two men were interested in gliders like those built by Otto Lilienthal. Wilbur and his brother began experimenting with wing designs for an airplane. They envisioned a bi-plane that could be guided by warping the wings.

Orville and Wilbur Wright continued to experiment with their airplane designs, first with gliders and eventually with powered flight. Their first successful flight of a powered airplane occurred at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. That first plane was very primitive, but within a few years, the Wright brothers, as well as other aircraft designers, had begun to make many improvements. The first flight only lasted twelve seconds and traveled 120 feet, but a later flight that day lasted fifty-nine seconds and traveled 852 feet.

Many Americans, including journalists, did not believe the story of the Wright brothers' first flight. Only five Ohio newspapers covered the story originally, because the others refused to believe that flight was possible. That skepticism proved to be short-lived, and Americans became very interested in news stories about airplanes. In the short term, the Wrights found it difficult to obtain funding for their efforts. They attempted to sell their design to the United States military, but the government was still too skeptical about the possibilities of flight. By 1908 and 1909, Wilbur Wright was gaining international attention for the brothers' designs by setting aeronautical records in France. He also sought newspaper coverage by flying around the Statue of Liberty and then flying along the Hudson River. Throughout this time period, the Wright brothers were continuing to develop new advances in aeronautical design.

Wilbur Wright's promise was cut short when he contracted typhoid fever. He died on May 30, 1912. His brother Orville continued to work on new developments in aircraft design after Wilbur's death.

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Reproduction of a portrait of inventor Wilbur Wright from Dayton, Ohio, ca. 1900-1912. Wilbur and his brother Orville built and flew the first mechanically powered airplane. Aviator Wilbur Wright was born on April 16, 1867, in Millville, Indiana. His parents were Bishop Milton Wright and Susan Catharine Wright.