Saturday, February 23, 2019

Day 23 - Ellen Elgin - Through The Wringer

An old washtub



Ellen Elgin



1849 - 1890?

(Today is "V", so we are doing another one-shot inventor)




Who Was She?


Ellen Elgin was born in Washington, D.C. She worked as a housekeeper and also has a clerk. 

An old washboard
Housekeepers often have to do laundry. Back in the 1800s, there were very few options for washing clothes other than putting them in a washtub and scrubbing them by hand on a washboard.    



After scrubbing the laundry by hand on the washboard, it was necessary to wring the clothes out by hand and them hand them to dry.


Ellen realized that there had to be a better way to wring the water out of clothes. So, she put her mind to it and came up with something that revolutionized the very necessary act of washing clothes. 







What Did She Invent?


Ellen Elgin invented the first clothes wringer! It was two rollers and a crank. For the first time in history, once the clothes were washed, you could get most of the water out of them with little or no effort. It also cut down on the time it took to dry the clothes, and it most likely saved a generation of women from repetitive workplace injuries from all that squeezing and hand wringing! (That last bit is my own editorializing. Anyone who has ever had to wring out something bulky knows what I'm talking about)


Ellen Elgin's Device

After she invented it, Elgin worried that if people found out a black woman invented it, nobody would use it.

She sold her idea to a white person who was interested in manufacturing the device for the hefty sum of eighteen dollars.


The person Ellen sold it to made a fortune transforming how women all over the world washed laundry. 

Ellen? She made $18.00.




What Is Her Legacy?



It wasn't riches.

It wasn't recognition then or now.



Until the first electric washers hit the market, people used Ellen Elgin's wringer to get the very last scintilla of extra water out of their clothes.

source
We still use the wringer today for mops. 




My favorite part of her legacy has nothing to do with housework or janitorial services.



The wringer was so common and so successful, that Elgin's invention crept into common parlance. 


To this day people use the phrase - "Putting someone through the wringer" to mean Putting someone through a great deal of trouble until you've squeezed everything out of them.




So, the next time you see set up where someone is using one of those hand-wringers to get the water out of the mop, or you hear someone talk about either being put the wringer or noting someone else was put through the wringer, it is all due to Ellen Elgin.

She revolutionized an industry and placed a permanent marker in our language.

Thank you, Ellen Elgin!

Celebrate Black History!





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Friday, February 22, 2019

Day 22 - Alfred L. Cralle - Next Time You Have Ice Cream....

Alfred L. Cralle







1866 - 1920


(Today is supposed to be U, but I couldn't find a good one, so I'm going to go with a one-shot inventor. I'm going to be doing that quite a bit here at the end of the alphabet)



Who Was Alfred L. Cralle




Alfred was born in Kenbridge, VA just after the Civil War ended. After his early school life, he went to work with his father in the carpentry business.

While he was working with his dad, he became interested in mechanical things.

His parents decided to send him to college to further his education.

Cralle attended Wayland Seminary in Washington DC. This was one of the schools set up after the Civil War to help African Americans improve their education.

After leaving the seminary, Cralle moved to Pittsburgh, PA and took a job as a porter at the Saint Charles hotel.  Merkell Brothers Drugstore was in the hotel. 

It was a hot summer and at the soda counter of the Merkell Brothers Drugstore, people were buying lots of ice cream.

He noticed that the soda jerks had to hold the cone with one hand and try to get the ice cream out with the other and then get it into the cones. People were using ladles or spoons and it was both tricky,  difficult, and the scoops were not uniform.

His got a beautiful, mechanical idea.


What Did He Invent

Ready for this?

Alfred L. Cralle Patented The Ice Cream Scoop in 1897!


Alfred L. Cralle's Patent




This is the one and only thing Alfred L. Cralle patented. It was such an amazing thing that it was reproduced and sold like fire. 

The basic design, as you can see is still in use today, and all of our current ice cream scoops are based on this one patent.

He never got a penny for this invention, nobody seems to remember he invented it at all.

He died in a car accident after suffering a series of personal losses.



His Legacy?
Yum. Ice Cream.


The next time you reach into the drawer and pull out your ice cream scoop, or see one on the shelf, or go into Cold Stone or Baskin Robbins...give a quick thank you to Alfred L. Cralle.

He made the world of ice cream infinitely sweeter!



Celebrate Black History Month!






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Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Day 20 - Charles S. L. Baker - The Friction Radiator

Charles S. L. Baker  (L) and an assistant standing behind his invention



Charles S. L. Baker

1859 - 1926




Who Was He?




Charles S. L. Baker was born in Savannah, MO.

After the Civil War, he was freed from enslavement. At the age of fifteen, Baker started working with wagons and the linchpins he repaired sparked his interest in mechanical sciences.

He became yet another African American inventor who was a self-taught mechanical engineer.

The thing that fascinated Baker was friction.

Friction could produce heat without any need for an outside heating source. it made him wonder how one could harness this process.

He spent decades trying to harness the power of friction in a practical application. It took him twenty-three years of trial and error using various things before he finally perfected a good process of using friction in a practical application. He designed a device and patented his invention.


What Did He Invent?

Charles S. L. Baker created a radiator that used friction to create the heat. 



After creating and patenting this device, Baker and a few other men opened a company called The Friction Heat & Boiler Company. Baker sat on the board of directors. 

In his day, Baker was a well-to-do, famous man in his hometown. The small business that he and his friends ran was reportedly very successful. 

I found lots of municipal records of The Friction Heat and Boiler Company, but nothing more about it.


I did find a death notice for Baker. 

Baker, Charles S. L. (1860-1926)


His Legacy?

I considered not including Baker in this list because to my knowledge, nobody is using this friction radiator that he created, but he claimed it was cheaper to run than the radiators that were in use in homes of the time. That radiator, the one that is still in use, was created by Franz San Galli, a Prussian born inventor.

There was a journal called The Draftsman that looked at inventions. It has not been in print for a long time, but follow that link and you can get a copy of it if you really want to read what must be a real page-turner of a book about inventions in the early 1900s. There was even a review of Baker's radiator.

"Mr. Baker claims that the particular mode of power used in creating the friction is not essential. It may be wind, water, gasoline, or any other source of energy. The most difficult part of the inventor's assertions to prove is that his system will light or heat a house at about half the cost of methods now in use." The Draftsman 1908


It appears that methods "now in use" won out over the friction radiator...but I wonder. 
As we move into more green forms of energy and we try to find ways to lower our energy costs 
could the friction radiator make a comeback?


Celebrate Black History!

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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Day 19 - Robert F. Flemming - Guitar Man

Robert F. Flemming



Robert F. Flemming Jr.

 1839 - 1919

Who Was He?





This is the trickiest inventor I have run across thus far. Not because of what he did, but because of the dispute about what he did.

So, let us get into it.

The first facts are not in dispute at all. Robert F. Flemming was born free in Baltimore, MD in 1839.

Like quite a few of the inventors I have profiled over the course of the month, he joined the Civil War effort with the Union. He was a Navy man.
source

A great deal has been written about his war record and what he was sailing on and what the various ships did.
In 1865, after the war, Flemming settled in Massachusettes. He opened a music store where he manufactured guitars and gave music lessons.

In 1900, he retired from his business and went to live in Melrose, MD. He spent the rest of his life playing music, giving the occasional lesson, and building and playing guitars for fun.


What Did He Invent?


Now we come to it...the controversy. 

Some sites credit Robert Flemming with being the inventor of the modern day acoustic guitar. The claim is that the guitars we use today are patterned after the guitar that Flemming designed and patented.

Now, the guitar has been around for a long, long time. The oldest variant we have was found in a tomb in Egypt. It is 3500 years old and was used by a musician named Har-Mose.
Har-Mose's Lute


Let there be no confusion here. Nobody is suggesting that there was never a guitar in the world, and then Robert Flemming designed and built the first one.

Honestly, if they found a 3500-year-old one buried in a tomb, these things had clearly been around long enough to have people who were aficionados of the music as well as masters at playing the instrument. They don't put any old thing in the tombs of queens. These things are going to the afterlife with them.



Source
So, if Flemming didn't invent the guitar. What the heck did he invent?




He invented a thing called a Euphonica.



As a musician and composer, he felt that this instrument had a more resonant sound than the guitars of his day.


He manufactured and sold these instruments, as well as playing them himself.

I can only assume he taught his students how to play them as well.

He received his patent for this instrument in 1886 in America and 1887 in Canada.



I have spent the last three days reading different opinions about this instrument and the information shakes out as follows:

1 - No, he did not invent the guitar, and that's all that matters. It was an ancient instrument and this does not count as a contribution to anything.

2 - No, he did not invent the guitar, this is crazy.

3 - Of course he invented the modern guitar, but because he is black, nobody wants to give him credit for it.

4 - Modern guitars are based on these designs. Before this invention, the guitars were different. (Nobody explains how)

5 - Elements of the Euphonica are still part of modern guitars.

6 - Flemming is responsible for inventing the blueprint for the modern guitar full stop.


Me? I don't play the guitar. I went on a hunt to see if I could find anybody playing a Euphonica. This became almost impossible as there are some musical groups called Euphonica, songs called Euphonica, and lots of videos of people playing the guitar, but not a single image of the above blueprint thing.

The Euphonica sort of looks like an upright bass, but the bass's history is even nuttier than the guitar.

Either way and who knows and all the same, I give you Robert F. Flemming! Inventor of the Euphonica. 

An instrument that may or may not have been the inspiration for the modern guitar.

Celebrate Black History!

Day 6 - Ernest Everett Just - Biologist, Zoologist, Cell man
Day 7 - Frederick McKinley Jones - The Coolest Man in Modern History
Day 8 - Sarah Goode - A Practical Bed For Small Spaces
Day 9 - William Henry Cling - Did He Invent The Hospital Bed Before Gatch?
Day 10 - Inez Beverly Prosser and Brown V.S. The Board of Education
Day 11 - Jan Ernst Mateliger - Mechanical Engineer/Sole Man
Day 12 - Samuel L. Kountz Jr. - Revolutionized Transplant Surgery
Day 13 - Lewis Howard Latimer - Incandescent Inventor
Day 14 - Marie Van Brittan Brown - Home Security
Day 15 - Norbert Rillieux - Sugar Man
Day 16 - Otis Boykin - He Kept Hearts Beating
Day 17 - Alice H. Parker - Heating It Up!
Day 18 - Lloyd Quarterman - Chemist and Atom Man
Day 19 - Robert F. Flemming Jr. - Guitar Man
Day 20 - Charles S. L. Baker - The Friction Radiator 
Day 21 - Granville T. Woods - The Black Edison
Day 22 - Alfred L. Cralle - Next Time You Have Ice Cream...
Day 23 - Ellen Elgin - Through The Wringer
Day 24 - Dr. Daniel Hale Williams - Holding A Heart In the Palm of His Hands
Day 25 - Benjamin Bradley - Steam Engine Dominance
Day 26 - Elijah McCoy - The Real One
Day 27 - Alexander Miles - Hold The Door, Please!

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Sunday, February 17, 2019

Day 21 - Granville T. Woods - The Black Edison

Granville Tailer Woods





(I sort of want to do a profile of Thomas Edison and call him the white Granville T. Woods)



1856 - 1910



Who Was He?





Granville was born in Columbus, Ohio to free African Americans. He did not manage to get much in the way of education as a young man because of his family's extreme poverty. 

At the age of ten, he was forced to quit school and get a job to help ends meet. 

blacksmith hammer
He was apprenticed in a machine shop and learned to be a machinist and blacksmith.  

(In reading about Woods, I discovered any number of sources that claimed that somewhere in his young life he attended a couple of years of college at some institution, but never got a degree. Nobody points to a single record, and no college or university has ever stepped forward with his name on their rolls.

There is no record of him having attended college anywhere.)

Granville became a fireman on the Danville and Southern Railroad in Missouri in 1872. 

This is what a fireman does.






By 1874 he was the engineer.


In 1874 he moved to Springfield, Il and found work in a rolling mill.

From that point in his life until 1880, Granville had a number of jobs from chief engineer on a locomotive line, to being an engineer aboard a British warship. It was during this period of his life when he was working railroads that he got the idea for his most famous invention.

It is in the years before 1880 that claims of night school or college are made. Again, despite sources announcing this, there is no evidence that he ever attended higher education. His mechanical and engineering know-how was earned as on the job training.

This does not mean he never spent a couple of years in night school, just that nobody seems to have any evidence it happened.




What Did He Invent?


In 1880, Granville moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and opened up a business as an electrical engineer and inventor. His idea was to design, execute, and sell electrical items.

source













In 1884 he patented an improved steam boiler furnace.  
























Induction Telegraph











In 1887 he patented the Induction Telegraph System for the railroads.

This was his most famous invention.

This clever device allowed the telegraph operators to send voice messages and telegraphs over the same wire.


It greatly improved both safety and service for the railroads.


Alexander Graham Bell's company snapped up the patent for this thing, and with the proceeds, Woods was able to set himself up for full time inventing.








Wood's biggest problem over his inventing life was that he would invent something, and a white man would show up and claim he'd invented it first. Woods had to defend his patents in court quite a few times.

The most famous inventor who tried to take credit for Wood's work was Thomas Edison. Edison sued him twice, claiming that he should get credit for the Induction Telegraph.

Edison lost in court twice. He was annoyed but determined to be in on whatever Woods invented next. To that end, Edison invited Woods to come on as a partner in his firm.

Woods respectfully declined Edison's offer and moved his operations to New York, City. There is no indication these two events had anything to do with each other.

After his tussle with Edison and the rejected partnership, people started calling Woods "The Black Edison".

Woods designed a number of revolutionary systems and items for the railroad. His work led directly to the establishment of subway systems.

Here is a link to the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association. They list a number of the inventions Woods designed and patented that made it possible to design and build the New York subway system.
What Is His Legacy?

Granville T. Woods transformed the railroad industry in America and across the world. His telegraph system made train travel much safer and more efficient.

His many inventions for trains and trolleys were foundational to the creation of all of the major subway systems in every American city. 

He improved a number of other features on the railroads like the air brake and third rail technology.

General Electric and Westinghouse are just two of the powerhouse companies who bought Granville's patents and produced his devices.


source



So, if you ever have occasion to get on a subway, or see one, or encounter one while you are watching a film, give a thought to Granville T. Woods. 

He's the reason it is there at all.








Celebrate Black History!

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Day 18 - Lloyd Quarterman


Lloyd Quarterman


Lloyd Quarterman - Chemist

1918 - 1982







Who Was He?



Lloyd was born in Philadelphia. In 1943 he graduated from St. Augustine University in Raliegh, NC. He was recruited right out of school to work on the Manhattan Project.

He ended up at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Enrico Fermi

Quarterman worked mainly with Hydrogen Fluorine.  Hydrogen Fluorine is used to isolate the Uranium isotope U-235. That is what is used in the construction of atomic bombs.

The U-235 that Quarterman isolated was used in making Little Boy, the bomb that was exploded over Hiroshima, Japan.


After the war, Quarterman achieved his master's degree at the University of Chicago.


He was employed at the Argonne National Laboratory for the remainder of his life and continued his work with quantum mechanics and chemistry.



What Is His Legacy?


This one was hard for me. As a huge pacifist and an army brat, I have a particular view about war.

Lloyd Quarterman's legacy is one of both war and peace. He was a key scientist on the Manhattan Project. That is forever part of his legacy. He was a young man when he helped create the atomic bomb.

What about the rest of his life?

The remainder of his life's work was consumed with the peaceful side of the atom.

He helped create nuclear power plants.

There are 60 commercial nuclear power plants in operation in America today with 98 nuclear reactors in 30 states.

Lloyd Quarterman was part of the project that ended WWII in such a horrible but decisive fashion.
He was also a man who helped find a way to harness the atom to work for many Americans.

Celebrate Black History!





Day 1 - The ABC's of Black History Month
Day 6 - Ernest Everett Just - Biologist, Zoologist, Cell man
Day 7 - Frederick McKinley Jones - The Coolest Man in Modern History
Day 8 - Sarah Goode - A Practical Bed For Small Spaces
Day 9 - William Henry Cling - Did He Invent The Hospital Bed Before Gatch?
Day 10 - Inez Beverly Prosser and Brown V.S. The Board of Education
Day 11 - Jan Ernst Mateliger - Mechanical Engineer/Sole Man
Day 12 - Samuel L. Kountz Jr. - Revolutionized Transplant Surgery
Day 13 - Lewis Howard Latimer - Incandescent Inventor
Day 14 - Marie Van Brittan Brown - Home Security
Day 15 - Norbert Rillieux - Sugar Man
Day 16 - Otis Boykin - He Kept Hearts Beating
Day 17 - Alice H. Parker - Heating It Up!
Day 18 - Lloyd Quarterman - Chemist and Atom Man
Day 19 - Robert F. Flemming Jr. - Guitar Man
Day 20 - Charles S. L. Baker - The Friction Radiator 
Day 21 - Granville T. Woods - The Black Edison
Day 22 - Alfred L. Cralle - Next Time You Have Ice Cream...
Day 23 - Ellen Elgin - Through The Wringer
Day 24 - Dr. Daniel Hale Williams - Holding A Heart In the Palm of His Hands
Day 25 - Benjamin Bradley - Steam Engine Dominance
Day 26 - Elijah McCoy - The Real One
Day 27 - Alexander Miles - Hold The Door, Please!

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Day 17 - Alice H. Parker - Heating It Up!

1895 - ??

Who was she?

That is a good question. Aside from some small bits of info I could glean from multiple sites, this seems to be the extent of what is certain about her.


Alice grew up in Morristown, NJ.
She graduated from Howard University Academy, which was a high school attached to the university.



That is the extent of what everyone agrees about her biography. We don't even have any idea when she died. Who knows? Maybe she's still here...

There are pictures of her online that I know for certain are not her. Sigh.

What did she invent?

Alice Parker got tired of winters in her freezing New Jersey house. Her fireplace was not the answer, as it did not heat the entire house sufficiently, and the smell of smoke had to be endured.

Now, some people would have moved to a warmer place. That worked for the mister and me.

Apparently, easy fixes like that either don't occur to inventors, or they look at some perfectly normal challenge and decide to fix it with a complicated device.

The device Alice invented was not only complicated; it changed how we heat buildings in this country and across the world.

In 1919, she received the patent for her invention. This device is still with us.

Alice invented the very first furnace that used natural gas.

It forced heated air through the building, heating the entire house. You could also adjust the temperature in each room.

She invented zone heating!



Her Legacy?

If you have been in any of the blizzards across the country in the last few years and you had comfy central heat - say a quick thank you to Alice Parker.

Every single central heating system in use today is based on her design!

Thank you, Alice, for keeping us warm!

Celebrate Black History!


Day 1 - The ABC's of Black History Month
Day 6 - Ernest Everett Just - Biologist, Zoologist, Cell man
Day 7 - Frederick McKinley Jones - The Coolest Man in Modern History
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