Miller Reese Hutchison
Encyclopedia
Miller Reese Hutchison was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed some of the first portable electric devices, such as a vehicle horn
and a hearing aid
.
. His father was William Hutchison and mother born Tracie Elizabeth Magruder. He attended Marion Military Institute
from 1889 through 2011, Spring Hill College
1891 through 1892, the University of Mobile
Military Institute from 1892 through 1895, and graduated from Auburn University
(then called Alabama Polytechnical Institute) in 1897. While still in school he invented and patent
ed a lightning arrester
for telegraph lines in 1895.
At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War
in 1898, he volunteered and was appointed engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board
, laying cables and mines to protect harbors in the Gulf of Mexico
.
, called the Akoulathon when it was first developed around 1895. It was also known as the microtelephone since it was essentially a self-contained version of the early telephone
as invented by Alexander Graham Bell
in the 1870s. His hearing aid was an electrical analog of the ear trumpet
: a large carbon microphone
called the "transmitter"
captured the sound and delivered it to a small carbon "receiver", which in turn delivered its output to the ear through headphones.
Hutchison's interest in the invention stemmed from a childhood friend, Lyman Gould, who was deaf from scarlet fever
. Besides his training in engineering, Hutchison had attended classes at the Medical College of Alabama to study the anatomy of the ear.
He formed the Akouphone Company in Alabama to market the device, but the original bulky tabletop form was not practical.
After the Spanish-American war Hutchison went to Europe to promote his hearing aids. Several members of royal families were known to suffer from hereditary hearing loss. Queen Alexandra of Denmark
was so happy with the results, she invited Hutchison to the coronation ceremony
in 1902 when her husband became King Edward VII of the United Kingdom
.
Around this time he moved to New York
to continue improving the device and inventing others.
By 1902, he had refined the hearing aid into a more portable form powered by batteries, which he then called the Acousticon.
The American press called the device a "miracle", and Hutchison helped by staging publicity events, such as having Metropolitan Opera
lead singer Suzanne Adams
photographed singing to formerly deaf people. He exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
, the world's fair in St. Louis, Missouri
in 1904.
Medical experts discovered the device had several drawbacks. Frequency
and dynamic range
were limited, and those who had total hearing loss were not helped. Batteries were still bulky and need to be changed often. However it was still regarded as "the best electrical aid for the semi-deaf yet devised."
He also developed related devices known as the Akou-Massage (renamed the Massacon), and Akoulalion, which converted audio into vibrations, to help those with more profound hearing loss. They were widely adopted by schools for the deaf in the US and Europe.
In 1905 Hutchison turned over the rights for the Acousticon to Kelley Monroe Turner (1859–1927). Turner would improve hearing aids (such as adding a volume control) and apply the technology to other products. One was the dictograph, which was an early hands-free inter-office intercom system. Turner's General Acoustic Company was renamed Dictograph Products Company because of the market success of the dictograph.
One of the first electric eavesdropping devices was called the Detective Dictograph, announced in 1910.
The carbon technology for hearing aids was used until the miniature vacuum tube
replaced it in the 1940s. Advertisements in 1947 still carried the Acousticon brand name, and invoked Queen Alexandra's coronation image of 45 years earlier; model names were "Coronation" and "Imperial".
traffic in New York City. An early version of a vehicle speed alarm was not readily adopted.
Warning devices at the time were either bells or horns essentially derived from musical instruments. He realized that a more obnoxious sound would serve as a better warning.
He designed a steel diaphragm with a pin at its center, driving the pin with a cam through either a hand crank or electric batteries via a small motor.
The "horn" part of the device made the sound directional, so a pedestrian could be more likely to look in the direction of the oncoming vehicle.
He licensed the patents to Lovell-McConnell Manufacturing Company in early 1908, and it was marketed as the Klaxon horn.
The name came from the Greek
work klaxo meaning "shriek" which described its sound.
At the January 1908 Importers' Automobile Salon in Madison Square Garden
New York, mayor George Brinton McClellan, Jr. was reported to have used one to make sure he had the loudest car in the city.
Hutchison himself had a limosine custom-built in May 1908 to showcase the latest in automotive electrical technology. The Witherbee Igniter Company installed storage batteries that could be recharged from an on-board generator, or by plugging into a light socket. The car was equipped with three Klaxon horns and an external speaker to warn other traffic. An intercom similar to the dictograph allowed passengers to talk with the chauffeur
. Many of the novel innovations in his vehicle are standard equipment today. Besides headlights with a dashboard switch, interior lamps lit automatically when doors were opened. The dashboard included lighted gauges, and alarms to indicate dangerous conditions. The car featured audible and visual back-up warning mechanisms.
By the next year Lovell-McConnell was shipping the horns throughout the USA and opened offices in Europe. They reportedly sent a gold-plated Klaxon for the British royal limousine.
Lovell-McConnel tried to keep prices high through contracts that prohibited discounting. However, competitors quickly came out with cheap imitations. Hutchison obtained further patents on improvements and fought the other horn vendors.
During a series of lawsuits for patent infringement, a 1899 patent by Alexander N. Pierman for a bicycle horn was used as an example of a similar product with only a slightly different use. Federal judge Thomas Chatfield
of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
ruled in favor of Hutchison.
In an appeal and other cases, however, Alfred Conkling Coxe, Sr.
generally ruled that Hutchison's claims were overly broad, and thus invalidated many of them.
Coxe called the horn's sound "harsh, raucous, and diabolical".
Lawyers said "a noise is not patentable".
The United Motors Company
bought out Lovell-McConnel in 1916, renamed it their Kalaxon Company subsidiary, and soon made the horns standard on General Motors
cars.
By 1908 Hutchison had developed an electrical tachometer
that would give an accurate reading of the speed of steam ship engines.
Previously, ship speed was judged by spinning shafts that were mechanically connected to the propellers. The innovation of using a simple generator and voltmeter
allowed much more precise control, and using wires the speed could be displayed remotely in the pilot house or captain's stateroom as well as engine room. The device even allowed speeds to be measured when the ship's engines were reversed. It was licensed to Industrial Instrument Company for production.
Hutchison became associated with Thomas Edison
from 1909, and was chief engineer of Edison's laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey
from August 1912 until July 1918.
In June 1913 he was awarded an honorary Electrical Engineer degree
from Auburn, and in June 1914 an honorary Ph.D. from Spring Hill College.
Hutchison also developed technology for use by the military. The Klaxon warning device became standard equipment on all United States Navy
ships.
During World War I
he worked on batteries for submarine
s in Edison's laboratory.
After experimental batteries caused an explosion of hydrogen
gas on the , Hutchison was accused of making false statements in a Navy inquiry.
In 1918 he left Edison's lab to devote full time to his own company: Miller Reese Hutchison, Incorporated had been formed in 1916 to further develop and sell batteries developed at Edison's laboratory. After World War I he founded Hutchison Office Specialties Company for the new market of electric business machines. One popular product was the "Spool-O-Wire" fastener machine. As its name implied, it used a continuous spool of wire to attach business documents to each other. It was advertised as handling from two to 40 sheets of paper, cloth, or cardboard, with a single wire spool replacing 15,000 individual staples
.
In 1921 he demonstrated a gun that could be used for embedding a projectile into steel at a precise velocity.
The dramatic demonstration was presented in his offices high in the Woolworth Building
of Lower Manhattan
.
He proposed using it to replace rivet
s for repairing ships underwater, while the press speculated on military uses as a weapon.
Another danger caused by the increased number of automobiles was carbon monoxide
(CO). Motorists would sometimes pass out or die in high-traffic tunnels, for example, from the odorless gas. In 1924 he announced an additive to gasoline that would allow cleaner combustion with fewer harmful fumes. The additive was marketed as Hutch-Olene, but never caught on.
After his second son was killed in an airplane crash in 1928, he became motivated to improve the safety of air travel.
In 1930 he announced a forerunner of today's Oxygen sensor
called the Moto-Vita. It was a crude measurement of the unburned vapors that allowed a pilot (or driver of an automobile) to adjust the air-fuel ratio
for both better efficiency and lower dangerous CO emissions.
In 1936 he was admitted to Alabama's hall of fame, with his number of patents estimated to be over 1000.
in New York on May 31, 1901. Their children were: Miller Reese Hutchison born in 1902, Harold Pomeroy Hutchison born 1904, Juan Ceballo Hutchison born 1906, and Robley Pomeroy Hutchison born 1908.
He died suddenly on February 16, 1944 in New York
.
A common quip (sometimes attributed to Mark Twain
) was that "Hutchison invented the Klaxon horn to deafen people so they would have to buy Acousticons."
He was called "one of Alabama's greatest contributions to science and invention."
Vehicle horn
A vehicle horn is a sound-making device used to warn others of the approach of the vehicle or of its presence. Automobiles, trucks, ships, and trains are all required by law to have horns...
and a hearing aid
Hearing aid
A hearing aid is an electroacoustic device which typically fits in or behind the wearer's ear, and is designed to amplify and modulate sound for the wearer. Earlier devices, known as "ear trumpets" or "ear horns", were passive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energy and...
.
Early life
Hutchison was born August 6, 1876 in Montrose, AlabamaMontrose, Alabama
Montrose is an unincorporated community in Baldwin County, Alabama, along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. It is part of the Daphne–Fairhope–Foley Micropolitan Statistical Area. Montrose has two sites included on the National Register of Historic Places, the Henry Stuart House and the...
. His father was William Hutchison and mother born Tracie Elizabeth Magruder. He attended Marion Military Institute
Marion Military Institute
Marion Military Institute, often abbreviated with the initialism MMI, is the official state military college of Alabama. Founded in Marion in 1842, it continues at its original location.-History:...
from 1889 through 2011, Spring Hill College
Spring Hill College
Spring Hill College is a private, Roman Catholic Jesuit liberal arts college in the United States. It was founded in 1830 on the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, by Most Rev. Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile, Alabama...
1891 through 1892, the University of Mobile
University of Mobile
The University of Mobile is an American four-year, private, Baptist-affiliated university in Mobile, Alabama. The master's-level university has an enrollment of 1,577.-History:...
Military Institute from 1892 through 1895, and graduated from Auburn University
Auburn University
Auburn University is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts...
(then called Alabama Polytechnical Institute) in 1897. While still in school he invented and patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed a lightning arrester
Lightning arrester
A lightning arrester is a device used on electrical power systems to protect the insulation on the system from the damaging effect of lightning. Metal oxide varistors have been used for power system protection since the mid 1970s. The typical lightning arrester also known as surge arrester has...
for telegraph lines in 1895.
At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
in 1898, he volunteered and was appointed engineer for the United States Lighthouse Board
United States Lighthouse Board
The United States Lighthouse Board was the agency of the US Federal Government that was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all lighthouses in the United States...
, laying cables and mines to protect harbors in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
.
Hearing aids
Hutchison was the inventor of the first electrical hearing aidHearing aid
A hearing aid is an electroacoustic device which typically fits in or behind the wearer's ear, and is designed to amplify and modulate sound for the wearer. Earlier devices, known as "ear trumpets" or "ear horns", were passive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energy and...
, called the Akoulathon when it was first developed around 1895. It was also known as the microtelephone since it was essentially a self-contained version of the early telephone
Invention of the telephone
The invention of the telephone is the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims. The development of the modern telephone involved an array of lawsuits founded upon the patent claims of several individuals...
as invented by Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
in the 1870s. His hearing aid was an electrical analog of the ear trumpet
Ear trumpet
Ear trumpets are tubular or funnel-shaped devices which collect sound waves and lead them into the ear. This results in a strengthening of the sound energy impact to the eardrum and thus a better hearing for a reduced or decreased hearing individual....
: a large carbon microphone
Carbon microphone
The carbon microphone, also known as a carbon button microphone or a carbon transmitter, is a sound-to-electrical signal transducer consisting of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. One plate faces outward and acts as a diaphragm...
called the "transmitter"
captured the sound and delivered it to a small carbon "receiver", which in turn delivered its output to the ear through headphones.
Hutchison's interest in the invention stemmed from a childhood friend, Lyman Gould, who was deaf from scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...
. Besides his training in engineering, Hutchison had attended classes at the Medical College of Alabama to study the anatomy of the ear.
He formed the Akouphone Company in Alabama to market the device, but the original bulky tabletop form was not practical.
After the Spanish-American war Hutchison went to Europe to promote his hearing aids. Several members of royal families were known to suffer from hereditary hearing loss. Queen Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark
Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...
was so happy with the results, she invited Hutchison to the coronation ceremony
Coronation of the British monarch
The coronation of the British monarch is a ceremony in which the monarch of the United Kingdom is formally crowned and invested with regalia...
in 1902 when her husband became King Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
.
Around this time he moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to continue improving the device and inventing others.
By 1902, he had refined the hearing aid into a more portable form powered by batteries, which he then called the Acousticon.
The American press called the device a "miracle", and Hutchison helped by staging publicity events, such as having Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
lead singer Suzanne Adams
Suzanne Adams
Suzanne Adams was an American lyric coloratura soprano. Known for her agile and pure voice, Adams first became well known in France before establishing herself as one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos at the beginning of the twentieth century.-Biography:Adams was born in Cambridge,...
photographed singing to formerly deaf people. He exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Louisiana Purchase Exposition
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...
, the world's fair in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
in 1904.
Medical experts discovered the device had several drawbacks. Frequency
Frequency response
Frequency response is the quantitative measure of the output spectrum of a system or device in response to a stimulus, and is used to characterize the dynamics of the system. It is a measure of magnitude and phase of the output as a function of frequency, in comparison to the input...
and dynamic range
Dynamic range
Dynamic range, abbreviated DR or DNR, is the ratio between the largest and smallest possible values of a changeable quantity, such as in sound and light. It is measured as a ratio, or as a base-10 or base-2 logarithmic value.-Dynamic range and human perception:The human senses of sight and...
were limited, and those who had total hearing loss were not helped. Batteries were still bulky and need to be changed often. However it was still regarded as "the best electrical aid for the semi-deaf yet devised."
He also developed related devices known as the Akou-Massage (renamed the Massacon), and Akoulalion, which converted audio into vibrations, to help those with more profound hearing loss. They were widely adopted by schools for the deaf in the US and Europe.
In 1905 Hutchison turned over the rights for the Acousticon to Kelley Monroe Turner (1859–1927). Turner would improve hearing aids (such as adding a volume control) and apply the technology to other products. One was the dictograph, which was an early hands-free inter-office intercom system. Turner's General Acoustic Company was renamed Dictograph Products Company because of the market success of the dictograph.
One of the first electric eavesdropping devices was called the Detective Dictograph, announced in 1910.
The carbon technology for hearing aids was used until the miniature vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
replaced it in the 1940s. Advertisements in 1947 still carried the Acousticon brand name, and invoked Queen Alexandra's coronation image of 45 years earlier; model names were "Coronation" and "Imperial".
Other inventions
Hutchison was concerned with increased automobileAutomobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
traffic in New York City. An early version of a vehicle speed alarm was not readily adopted.
Warning devices at the time were either bells or horns essentially derived from musical instruments. He realized that a more obnoxious sound would serve as a better warning.
He designed a steel diaphragm with a pin at its center, driving the pin with a cam through either a hand crank or electric batteries via a small motor.
The "horn" part of the device made the sound directional, so a pedestrian could be more likely to look in the direction of the oncoming vehicle.
He licensed the patents to Lovell-McConnell Manufacturing Company in early 1908, and it was marketed as the Klaxon horn.
The name came from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
work klaxo meaning "shriek" which described its sound.
At the January 1908 Importers' Automobile Salon in Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
New York, mayor George Brinton McClellan, Jr. was reported to have used one to make sure he had the loudest car in the city.
Hutchison himself had a limosine custom-built in May 1908 to showcase the latest in automotive electrical technology. The Witherbee Igniter Company installed storage batteries that could be recharged from an on-board generator, or by plugging into a light socket. The car was equipped with three Klaxon horns and an external speaker to warn other traffic. An intercom similar to the dictograph allowed passengers to talk with the chauffeur
Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.Originally such drivers were always personal servants of the vehicle owner, but now in many cases specialist chauffeur service companies, or individual drivers provide...
. Many of the novel innovations in his vehicle are standard equipment today. Besides headlights with a dashboard switch, interior lamps lit automatically when doors were opened. The dashboard included lighted gauges, and alarms to indicate dangerous conditions. The car featured audible and visual back-up warning mechanisms.
By the next year Lovell-McConnell was shipping the horns throughout the USA and opened offices in Europe. They reportedly sent a gold-plated Klaxon for the British royal limousine.
Lovell-McConnel tried to keep prices high through contracts that prohibited discounting. However, competitors quickly came out with cheap imitations. Hutchison obtained further patents on improvements and fought the other horn vendors.
During a series of lawsuits for patent infringement, a 1899 patent by Alexander N. Pierman for a bicycle horn was used as an example of a similar product with only a slightly different use. Federal judge Thomas Chatfield
Thomas Chatfield
Thomas Chatfield was a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York....
of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the entirety of Long Island and Staten Island...
ruled in favor of Hutchison.
In an appeal and other cases, however, Alfred Conkling Coxe, Sr.
Alfred Conkling Coxe, Sr.
Alfred Conkling Coxe, Sr. was longtime a federal judge in New York.Coxe was born in Auburn, New York. His legal career began with private practice in Utica from 1868. In 1870 he entered the firm of Conkling, Holmes & Coxe, of Utica, composed of Roscoe Conkling, then United States Senator, ex-Judge...
generally ruled that Hutchison's claims were overly broad, and thus invalidated many of them.
Coxe called the horn's sound "harsh, raucous, and diabolical".
Lawyers said "a noise is not patentable".
The United Motors Company
United Motors Company
ACDelco is an American automotive parts company. Over its long history it has been known by various names such as United Motors Corporation, United Motors Service, United Delco, merged with AC Spark Plug and known as AC-Delco....
bought out Lovell-McConnel in 1916, renamed it their Kalaxon Company subsidiary, and soon made the horns standard on General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
cars.
By 1908 Hutchison had developed an electrical tachometer
Tachometer
A tachometer is an instrument measuring the rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other machine. The device usually displays the revolutions per minute on a calibrated analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly common...
that would give an accurate reading of the speed of steam ship engines.
Previously, ship speed was judged by spinning shafts that were mechanically connected to the propellers. The innovation of using a simple generator and voltmeter
Voltmeter
A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring electrical potential difference between two points in an electric circuit. Analog voltmeters move a pointer across a scale in proportion to the voltage of the circuit; digital voltmeters give a numerical display of voltage by use of an analog to...
allowed much more precise control, and using wires the speed could be displayed remotely in the pilot house or captain's stateroom as well as engine room. The device even allowed speeds to be measured when the ship's engines were reversed. It was licensed to Industrial Instrument Company for production.
Hutchison became associated with Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
from 1909, and was chief engineer of Edison's laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey
West Orange, New Jersey
West Orange is a township in central Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 46,207...
from August 1912 until July 1918.
In June 1913 he was awarded an honorary Electrical Engineer degree
Engineer's degree
An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering that is conferred in Europe, some countries of Latin America, and a few institutions in the United States....
from Auburn, and in June 1914 an honorary Ph.D. from Spring Hill College.
Hutchison also developed technology for use by the military. The Klaxon warning device became standard equipment on all United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
ships.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he worked on batteries for submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s in Edison's laboratory.
After experimental batteries caused an explosion of hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
gas on the , Hutchison was accused of making false statements in a Navy inquiry.
In 1918 he left Edison's lab to devote full time to his own company: Miller Reese Hutchison, Incorporated had been formed in 1916 to further develop and sell batteries developed at Edison's laboratory. After World War I he founded Hutchison Office Specialties Company for the new market of electric business machines. One popular product was the "Spool-O-Wire" fastener machine. As its name implied, it used a continuous spool of wire to attach business documents to each other. It was advertised as handling from two to 40 sheets of paper, cloth, or cardboard, with a single wire spool replacing 15,000 individual staples
Staple (fastener)
A staple is a type of two-pronged fastener, usually metal, used for joining or binding materials together. Large staples might be used with a hammer or staple gun for masonry, roofing, corrugated boxes and other heavy-duty uses...
.
In 1921 he demonstrated a gun that could be used for embedding a projectile into steel at a precise velocity.
The dramatic demonstration was presented in his offices high in the Woolworth Building
Woolworth Building
The Woolworth Building is one of the oldest skyscrapers in New York City. More than a century after the start of its construction, it remains, at 57 stories, one of the fifty tallest buildings in the United States as well as one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City...
of Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
.
He proposed using it to replace rivet
Rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the buck-tail. On installation the rivet is placed in a punched or pre-drilled hole, and the tail is upset, or bucked A rivet...
s for repairing ships underwater, while the press speculated on military uses as a weapon.
Another danger caused by the increased number of automobiles was carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...
(CO). Motorists would sometimes pass out or die in high-traffic tunnels, for example, from the odorless gas. In 1924 he announced an additive to gasoline that would allow cleaner combustion with fewer harmful fumes. The additive was marketed as Hutch-Olene, but never caught on.
After his second son was killed in an airplane crash in 1928, he became motivated to improve the safety of air travel.
In 1930 he announced a forerunner of today's Oxygen sensor
Oxygen sensor
An oxygen sensor, or lambda sensor, is an electronic device that measures the proportion of oxygen in the gas or liquid being analyzed. It was developed by the Robert Bosch GmbH company during the late 1960s under the supervision of Dr. Günter Bauman...
called the Moto-Vita. It was a crude measurement of the unburned vapors that allowed a pilot (or driver of an automobile) to adjust the air-fuel ratio
Air-fuel ratio
Air–fuel ratio is the mass ratio of air to fuel present in an internal combustion engine. If exactly enough air is provided to completely burn all of the fuel, the ratio is known as the stoichiometric mixture, often abbreviated to stoich...
for both better efficiency and lower dangerous CO emissions.
In 1936 he was admitted to Alabama's hall of fame, with his number of patents estimated to be over 1000.
Family and death
Hutchison married Martha Jackman Pomeroy of Minnetonka, MinnesotaMinnetonka, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 51,301 people, 21,393 households, and 14,097 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,893.0 persons per square mile . There were 22,228 housing units at an average density of 818.9 per square mile...
in New York on May 31, 1901. Their children were: Miller Reese Hutchison born in 1902, Harold Pomeroy Hutchison born 1904, Juan Ceballo Hutchison born 1906, and Robley Pomeroy Hutchison born 1908.
He died suddenly on February 16, 1944 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
A common quip (sometimes attributed to Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
) was that "Hutchison invented the Klaxon horn to deafen people so they would have to buy Acousticons."
He was called "one of Alabama's greatest contributions to science and invention."