The Businessman-Inventor

We have seen how inventors turned into business by marketing their own inventions, but there were those who had a business and turned into inventors as well.  These businessmen had a "nose" for new ideas and were willing to risk their capital, their time and energy, to see those ideas come into fruition.

There were men like Frederic Tudor of the ice business fame, Edwin Drake of the oil business, Gustavus Swift of the meat packing business, and John Henry Patterson of the sales business.  Each man had a bit of inventor in him, but they were mainly promoters and organizers. 

No matter which type of inventor they all were, all inventors had something in common - they had "stick-to-it-ive-ness," a single-minded persistence that made them pursue their idea regardless of the circumstances, opinions, or obstacles they encountered. 

The industrial research and development laboratory was organized with this same spirit.  The attitude, the energy, and the purpose that was born in these inventors and businessmen was brought to R&D.  These men worked on things the American public didn't even know existed, until it existed, with parameters like "feasibility"  "cost" and "need."  They were amateur inventors, but they were not rule of thumb guys.  They were scientists with advanced training and knowledge.  No longer working to find one particular thing, they were just seeking to find.  The process of finding was the focus now.  And the things they discovered, or invented, changed the world.

Next time...Willis R. Whitney
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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 7, 1843, a teenage sailor, Nakahama Manjiro, comes ashore in Fairhaven, Massachusetts after a shipwreck and is considered the first Japanese immigrant in America.  He attends schools, goes on whaling expeditions and becomes a part of the California Gold Rush before sailing back to Japan.

The Inventor-Businessman

Edison was an example of scientific inventors who set up labs for their own purposes.  Others included Benjamin Stillman, who analyzed oil sample for the oil companies, Charles Jackson who introduced Samuel Morse to the principle of the electric telegraph.  These men of "research and development" worked behind to scenes to make others a household name.

Actually Jackson (pictured right) opened a chemical lab in Boston in 1836 where he experimented with gun-cotton  and sorghum, proposing the application of ether in surgery. He is credited with developing the basis for the telegraph and anesthesia. His contemporary, James Booth, in Philadelphia, set up a laboratory for researching sugar, molasses and iron while providing instructions to young chemists.

The 19th century is full of struggling inventors who sacrificed and braved the public ridicule.  Eli Whitney (cotton gin), Oliver Evans (steam engine), Elias Howe (sewing machine), Gail Borden (condensing milk), Samuel Morse (telegraph), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), George Eastman (film rolls), and John Wesley Hyatt (plastics).  These men spent their lives, and their family's lives to produce marketable ideas that would change our lives for the better.

These men were inventor-businessmen.  They fashioned a product with their own hands, demonstrated it to the public, showed how to manufacture it, and finally persuaded someone to do just that.  There were the inventors turned businessmen.  There were also the businessmen turned inventors...Next time.

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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor-party rally.  The police responded with gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more.  The demonstration which drew 1500 Chicago workers, was led by a German born activist and set off a national wave of foreign dissension. 

For the Love of Invention

In the United States post-Civil War years, it was reported that successful invention was seldom the work of a solitary inventor.  However, a study of 70 cases of inventions in Europe and America during this period would show these came from the inventor with meager resources, struggling to invent.  These inventions included the jet engine, the process of making soap and margarine, power steering, magnetic tape recording, Bakelite, the helicopter, Kodachrome, the zipper and the self-winding wristwatch - all inventions made by solo inventors.

The organizational quest for the invention, however was new.  In modern America, the most substantial, most calculating, and the largest, most respectable enterprise would produce the most respectable inventor who would make it his profession.  No longer the profession of the eccentric madman - the inventor became the geniuses of the scientific world.

Thomas Alva Edison saw inventing as a passion.  He sometimes complained that every young applicant for a job at Menlo Park wanted to know how much the pay was or how long the hours were.  "Well we don't pay anything, and we work all the time!" - Edison would tell them.  Many young men shared his passion and joined him in his work at Menlo Park, pay or no pay.  Simply for the love of invention.

Next time...The Edison Electric Light Company
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Today in Pioneer History: "On March 8, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games is held in Athens, Greece.  It was the first time in 1,500 years that athletes competed from 13 nations in the games.  The events included track and field, gymnastics, wrestling and the first ever marathon to an audience of 60,000 people. 

Gail Borden- Inventor and Pubic Servant

Gail Borden was a land agent in Texas who wanted to find a way to make food more portable for those pioneers traveling west in the 1800s.  Borden had been born on a farm in New York, then migrated to Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana where he knew firsthand the problems of westward travels.  He was a self-taught surveyor and schoolteacher before coming to Texas in 1829.

His long public career in Texas began in 1835 when Borden and a friend found the weekly newspaper, The Telegraph and Texas Register, the first newspaper to last more than two years in Texas.  He became the official printer for the Republic of Texas, printing the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836.  Borden was named official surveyor before moving to Galveston to become the Collector of Port, where he designed the city street layouts, the water supply and a became seller of land lots.

Borden was also an inventor.  His "Bath House" was a portable way for ladies to bathe in the waters of the Gulf in privacy.  For his wedding anniversary, he gave his wife a revolving dining table with a center that rotated to serve individual guests.  Other inventions included his own steamboat and his "Terraqueous Machine" which was a sail driven covered wagon for land or sea.  Although it was amphibious, when tested in the Gulf waters, it capsized, dumping all his passengers in the water.

Borden's most important discovery in 1849 was an improved process for preserving the nutrition of meat by extraction.  Combining the condensed extracted meat with flour, he made a biscuit or cracker for carrying over long journeys.  Advertising his own product in 1850, Borden showed the benefits for seamen, travelers, explorers and anyone traveling in Indian Country where a campfire could signal danger.  The first arctic exploration carried the Meat Biscuit canisters along.  In 1851 the Meat Biscuit was exhibited alongside McCormick's Virginia Reaper and Colt's Revolver in London's Crystal Palace Exhibition. 

Borden spent six years and $60,000 promoting his Meat Biscuit.  It was deemed unsightly and unpalatable unless under dire circumstances.  Borden, however, had a better idea - which in 50 years would come to mean milk to Americans. 

Next time...Bessie the Cow
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Today in Pioneer History: "On September 19, 1827, Jim Bowie stabs a Louisiana banker with the Bowie knife.  The actual inventor of the Bowie knife was probably not Jim himself but his brother, Rezin Bowie who reportedly came up with the design after nearly being killed in a vicious knife fight.

Elias Howe

Elias Howe was born in 1819 in Massachusetts, the son of a farmer.  At the age of 20, he began to be interested in a knitting machine while working as an apprentice in Boston.  When he finally decided to work on a sewing machine years later, he had a wife and three children and made $9 a week. 

He tried and made many false starts until 1844 when Walter Hunt's idea of the eye-needle on a shuttle reminded him of a weaving loom.  A year later, he had perfected sewing a seam and in 1846 he received his patent.  To get the public to understand his idea, he went to the Quincy Hall Clothing Manufacturer and offered to demonstrate his invention.  It was a cynical audience, but after doing 250 stitches a minute for two weeks, heads turned. 

Unfortunately, even those demonstrations weren't enough to make people want to purchase his machine for several reasons.  First it cost $300.  Second, it didn't make the whole garment.  Third it would put tailors and seamstresses out of work.  So Howe went to London where his was successful in getting his machine into corset making business. 

Again, unfortunately, his fate didn't last in London either and he returned to New York where he found his machine on display as an exhibition - charging twelve and half cents to watch it demonstrated.  Others had taken his invention and made their own machines.  Howe was determined to protect his legal rights and recovered his original machine and patent papers from London. 

Howe tried to bargain licenses for a royalty fee, but ended up having to take his case to court.  That cost money and Howe had to mortgage his father's farm.  It was the industrial battles of the century and filled the papers with the daily activities.  The outcome?  We will return to that but there is another player that we need to look at first, Issac Singer.

Next time...Issac Singer
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On June 20, 1875, Mountain Man Joe Meek dies at age 65 on his farm in Oregon.  A skilled practitioner of the frontier art of the tall tale, his life was nearly as adventurous as his stories claimed, having survived a hand to hand fight with a grizzly bear.  Meek was one of the early explorers and tamers of the West.