Charles Franklin Kettering
Charles F. Kettering : Doing the right thing at the right time
By Richard P. Scharchburg, Thompson Professor of Industrial History
The Man...
Charles Franklin Kettering was born on a farm near Loundonville, Ohio, August 29, 1876. After graduation from high school, he accepted a teaching position in a one-room rural school. Although highly successful as a teacher, his mind was set on going to college.
In the summer of 1896, he entered the College of Wooster (Ohio). As a result of long and intense hours of study, his eyesight deteriorated to the point that he was forced to leave college and return to teaching. In 1898, he entered the engineering school at Ohio State, but again his poor eyesight forced him to drop out during his freshman year. For the next two years he worked on a telephone line crew, and then once again entered Ohio State, finally completing his electrical engineering degree in 1904.
After graduation, Kettering took a job in the inventions department at the National Cash Register Company (NCR) in Dayton, Ohio. There he developed an electric motor for cash registers, the OK Charge Phone for department stores and several other contributions to a revolution then taking place in business machines.
In 1909, Kettering and Edward A. Deeds, his associate at NCR, formed their own industrial research laboratory, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (later known as DELCO). Within three years, they had produced a new all-electric starting, ignition and lighting system for automobiles. The system first appeared as standard equipment on the 1912 Cadillac and as its use spread, women could conveniently become drivers without the assistance of a chauffeur.
DELCO was eventually sold to General Motors and became the foundation for the General Motors Research Corporation of which Kettering became vice president in 1920. The list of innovations and inventions that are credited to Charles F. (nicknamed "Boss") Kettering is impressive.
His book of patents contains more than 300 separate applications that range from a portable lighting system for farms to coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners. Other patents included a World War I "aerial torpedo," a device for the treatment of venereal disease, and an incubator for premature infants. Duco paint and Ethyl gasoline were also his ideas and he was instrumental in their development.
Henry Ford, born in 1863, was the inventor of the industrial assembly line (4 - 2). He born to two farmers in rural Michigan, but even as a child he aspired for more (9 - 3). He began apprenticing at many different mechanical companies before settling at the company of the famed inventor Thomas Edison as an apprentice (4 - 2). Edison's business the Edison Electric Light Company was initially financed by John Pierpont Morgan, a "robber baron" (2 - 6)(3 - 1). The "robber barons" were men who had made a fortune during the mid to late twentieth century and were able to fund other's projects and help American capitalism progress (3 - 1). With the money given to him by John Morgan, Thomas Edison was able to finance Henry Ford's fascination
Later when he was 25 years (1870) he became fireman on the railroad and at night he went to a local business college.
He served in WWII as a flight radar observer and navigator. After serving in the army he went to school at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He went there on the G. I. Bill. After graduating from Vanderbilt with a M. A. in English, he started to teach. He taught first at the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. His time there was cut short because he was recalled to duty in Korea as flight training instructor. But as soon as he was discharged from the Corps he returned to teach again at Rice University. He taught at Rice until 1954 when he left to go to Europe on the Sewanee Review fellowship. After returning to the U.S. he joined the English Department at the University of Florida. He did not stay there long because he resigned after a dispute after he h...
Every so often a man or women has an idea that is innovative, amazing or in some cases far ahead of its time. Unfortunately it is far too common that these ideas are lost or stifled by people who are afraid of the change they may bring. Since people also tend to believe if something seems too good to be true it probably is, these ideas may not get enough good attention until it is too late. Preston Tucker was one of these innovative people with a great idea. In 1944 he began work on a car that was safe, reliable, and groundbreaking. So far ahead of its time it made the wrong people nervous. The car was first christened as the Tucker Torpedo but due to concerns over torpedo not sounding safe, it was changed to the Tucker 1948. These amazing cars turned out to be one of the most revolutionary automobiles ever made and would have remained so if it weren’t for a slander campaign by the United States government.
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Du Bois had a poor but relatively happy New England childhood. While still in high school he began his long writing career by serving as a correspondent for newspapers in New York and in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Abraham Lincoln compared to other president in my opinion is the best president and he lived in Illinois for a long time because of being a lawyer he may have been seen of being very tall and grim but he was actually a loving person that was always with his family and making sure that if they were sick he would help them the best he could but sadly almost all his sons died.
At 22, after two-thirds of a year at Berea College in West Virginia, he returned to the coalmines and studied Latin and Greek between trips to the mineshafts. He then went on to the University of Chicago, where he received bachelors and master's degrees, and Harvard University, where he became the second black to receive a doctorate in history.
I hope I have answered the question “What was his personal life like?” good in here and would like to summarize by saying that he was able to overcome all odds to become a famous inventor that even had a movie made by him. I would also like to say that He made many, many products that we still use all from simple plants like peanuts in summary to the answer of the question “What did he actually do?”. He also had many hobbies that ended up in helping many people (“What did he like to do when he wasn’t working?”). I have found that this man that I knew nothing about before the report is one of the few real life people I know of that overcame so many things in his life that almost no one even knows
Over the sequence of the industrial revolution, America was swept with vehement new inventions and ideas. In 1793, inventor Eli Whitney successfully created a cotton gin that separated seeds from fibers, accelerating the production of raw cotton. This invention resulted in cotton becoming America’s number one leading export by the mid 19th century. ("Cotton Gin and Eli Whitney") Around the climax of the revolution, Charles Goodyear discovered vulcanization of rubber. By doing so, Goodyear successfully brought “rubber fever” back to America. ("The Charles Goodyear Story") In the year of 1913, the industrial revolution made a final mark in the united states with Ford’s mass production of the Model T Car. This was the last innovation of the american industrial revolution, after which began the takeover of white collar careers. (Morris)
His first invention was a lubricator for steam engines, U.S. 129,843, which issued on July 12, 1872. The invention allowed machines to remain in motion to be oiled; his new oiling device revolutionized the industrial machine industry.
The Great Electric Car was first invented by William Morrison, which is one of the greatest chemist in the world today, makes a bizarre decision and mind making to create the Great Electric Car. The Great Electric Car is the greatest car that ever invented by a human being.
Henry Ford had always demonstrated a keen interest in increased efficiency, previously though, he had not incorporated new technology. When building the predecessor to the Model T, the Model N, Ford had his workers line the parts up along the floor and dragged the car along the line as each part was applied . Not surprisingly these methods did not hold as the Model T became increasingly popular. During this time Frederick Taylor was becoming more and more popular to the point where Ford heard about his ideas of scientific management. Taylorism was known as the stopwatch and clipboard approach, meaning that Frederick Taylor was constantly testing different styles of building for each worker unt...
Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company in 1903 (“Ford Motor Company”.). In 1908 GM was founded (“Company: History and Heritage”.) and in 1937 Mopar was founded (“Evolution of a trademark”). Today, there are numerous automobile companies in competition and the automobile is the most reliable transportation in America and around the world. The invention of the automobile undoubtedly had one of the biggest impacts on American History.
Edison’s vision of invention as a process shaped much of his business approach. For Edison it was never enough to simply develop and perfect a concept or idea; he constantly drove him...