Charles F. Kettering

THE HOOVER MEDAL

THE HOOVER MEDAL, founded in 1929, was instituted to commemorate the civic and humanitarian achievements of Herbert Hoover, and the first award was made to him in 1930.

The trust fund creating the award was the gift of Conrad N. Lauer, of Philadelphia. It is held by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and is administered by a Board of Award consisting of representatives of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. The medal was executed by John Flanagan, of New York.

Since the presentation of the medal to Mr. Hoover in 1930 it has been awarded fifteen times, as follows:

1936 Ambrose Swasey

1938 John Frank Stevens

1939 Gano Dunn

1941 D. Robert Yarnall

1942 Gerard Swope

1944 Ralph Edward Flanders

1945 William Henry Harrison

1946 Vannevar Bush

1948 Malcolm Pirnie

1949 Frank B. Jewett

1950 Karl T. Compton

1951 William Loren Batt

1952 Clarence D. Howe

1954 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.

1955 Charles F. Kettering

The 1955 medal was presented by Scott Turner, chairman of the Hoover Medal Board of Award, on November 17, 1955 at a joint honors luncheon during the Diamond Jubilee Annual Meeting of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Conrad Hilton Hotel, Chicago, Illinois.

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CHARLES F. KETTERING

Scientist, engineer, inventor, philosopher, organizer of scientific efforts, developer of engineering devices and techniques, leader in industrial research, whose ideals and accomplishments have been inspirations to the men of many countries.

Charles Franklin Kettering, American inventor and manufacturer, a director and former vice president of General Motors and former general manager of the General Motors Research Laboratories, was born on a farm near Loudonville, in Ashland County, Ohio, on Aug. 29, 1876. At present, having retired June 2, 1947, as head of the GM Research Laboratories, he retains the status of research consultant.

Like all farm boys, Charles Kettering was responsible for a number of daily chores, and his spare time was spent in milking, cultivating corn and digging potatoes. The first money he earned, $14 for cutting a neighbor’s wheat crop, was spent on a telephone purchased from a mail-order house. On the day of its arrival, Mr. Kettering dismantled the apparatus to study it. He attended the district school near his home and later graduated from the Loudonville High School. Though not a spectacular student, his scholastic standing was quite high.

At 19 Mr. Kettering was teacher of go children in a one-room country school at Bunker Hill, Ohio. His ambition, however, was to acquire a college education, and in the summer of 1896, he entered the College of Wooster to study the classical languages. While he was at Wooster, Mr. Kettering learned of the engineering courses offered at Ohio State University, and he was fired with ambition to attend the electrical engineering classes there.

But toward the end of that summer at Wooster College his weak eyes failed, and he became almost blind as a result of eyestrain from overstudy. His hope of becoming an electrical engineer temporarily shattered, Mr. Kettering returned to his home to wait for his eyes to recover from the strain to which they had been subjected.

Several months afterwards, Mr. Kettering worked as a teacher in the grade school at Mifflin, Ohio. With him was his sister, Emma, who taught the younger children. Mr. Kettering’s interest in scientific research developed very rapidly at this time. His evenings were spent with a local druggist friend, John C. Robinson, with whom he conducted many experiments in chemistry and electricity.

In 1898, when he was 22, Mr. Kettering’s eyes had recovered sufficiently to permit him to register in the engineering school at Ohio State University. One of his first teachers was Dr. F. O. Clements, who was closely associated with him in later life. From 1916 until his retirement in 1939, Dr. Clements was retained by Mr. Kettering as technical director of his research laboratories.

During his freshman year, Mr. Kettering’s weak eyes were a great handicap to him. Although he went back in the fall for his sophomore year his eyesight became so bad that he found it necessary to interrupt his education once more. In 1900, he began work for the Star Telephone Company of Ashland, Ohio, as a laborer with a telephone-line gang. By the middle of the summer he was made foreman of that gang and his eyes had regained much of their strength. He went on from there to do everything in the operation of a small telephone company. His principal achievement was installing a central battery telephone exchange in Ashland. This was one of the first central-battery systems in Ohio.

In 1901, Mr. Kettering returned once more to the Ohio State University as a sophomore. He was then 25. He continued to work as a telephone trouble-shooter and installation man in his spare time, and in this way was able to support himself through college. In 1904, he graduated at the age of 28 with the degree of mechanical engineer in electrical engineering. According to tradition, he is supposed to have thrown away his diploma, because he did not want to think his education was finished.

Immediately after graduation, Mr. Kettering became associated with the inventions department of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio. His first assignment was to develop an electric drive for the cash register. The experts had said that this job could not be done, because it would require an electric motor as large as the cash register itself to do the job. Mr. Kettering knew, however, that he could overload a small motor if it ran for only an instant and had rather long periods to cool down between times. Using this fact as the basis of his design, he produced his first electric cash register in 1904. Today — so years later — the electric drive on the cash register is essentially unchanged from the original model.

From 1904 to 1909, Mr. Kettering remained as an inventor with the National Cash Register Company. In this five-year period, he completely revolutionized the cash register business with his inventions and improvements on accounting and calculating equipment. Another one of his contributions was the development of the O.K. Charge Phone System, which provided for a rapid authorization of customers’ charge orders in large department stores. Twenty-five years later, in 1936, Mr. Kettering was elected to the board of directors of the National Cash Register Company in recognition of the services which he had rendered to it during the five years of his employ.

By 1909, Mr. Kettering left the National Cash Register Company and organized his own laboratory, the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, later abbreviated to “Delco.” His partner in this venture was Edward A. Deeds, who was associated with the National Cash Register Company in an official capacity and also with the Republic Motor Car Company of Hamilton, Ohio. Through their close association with the automobile industry of that day, both Mr. Kettering and Mr. Deeds had acquired a knowledge of the shortcomings of the electrical equipment used in the automobile. It was one of their purposes in founding Delco to redesign this equipment and improve automobile performance.

Among the first of the problems to which Mr. Kettering turned his attention was the ignition system. Two types of ignition were then in use —the magneto system and the battery system. In the battery system, dry cells were used in connection with a master vibrator to provide a stream of sparks in the cylinder for ignition purposes, but only at the expense of avery heavy drain on the dry cells, causing their early depletion. The best that could be expected from a single set of cells was a possible three hundred miles.

Mr. Kettering had done considerable research on electrical relays in his work for the telephone company and at National Cash Register, and the possibility of using a controlling relay instead of vibrators in the ignition system suggested itself to him as a means of eliminating some of the more troublesome defects in the battery ignition system. In this way, he was able to substitute one positive spark per power stroke for the shower of sparks that had been used before, thus reducing the drain on the dry cells. An experimental model incorporating this idea was constructed and found to be superior in all respects to the vibrator system. As a result of this improvement, the driving range of the automobile was increased from a possible 300 miles to over 2,000 miles on a single set of dry cells.

The first automobile manufacturer to use Mr. Kettering's new ignition system was the Republic Motor Car Company, which fitted a portion of its 1gog output with the system. Two other motorcars — the Stoddard-Dayton and the Speedwell — used it as optional equipment. The most important user, however, was the Cadillac Motor Car Company, which investigated the system in 190g and offered it as standard equipment on its 1910 model.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kettering had been searching for an electrical generator suitable for automobile lighting. From his experiments, he became convinced that such a generator could be converted into an electric motor, having a relatively high torque so that it could be used for cranking purposes as well as for battery charging. About this time, Henry Leland, general manager of the Cadillac Motor Company, was mourning the death of a personal friend who had broken his jaw while cranking an automobile. Mr. Leland at once encouraged Mr. Kettering to develop his idea and submit a working model.

Within a year, Mr. Kettering’s electrical starting, lighting and ignition system was established fact. Preliminary construction work on the new starter commenced early in September, 1910. By the middle of the month, Mr. Kettering and his assistants were making their first tests and sketching plans for the final assembly. On the night of Dec. 17, 1910, the first starter was completed and assembled on a Cadillac car. After two months of feverish redesigning and testing this car was shipped to Mr. Leland in Detroit, Feb. 16, 1911.

In Detroit the new starter was subjected to a series of exacting tests by the Cadillac engineers and was found to perform in a satisfactory manner. The next few weeks, however, brought with them one disaster after another. First Mr. Kettering suffered a broken leg while testing an experimental car and was ordered to stay in bed for some weeks. Then the Leland garage in Detroit caught on fire and the only car equipped with the self-starter was badly damaged. Faced now with imminent failure of his plans, Mr. Kettering scrambled out of his sick bed against doctor’s orders and took a train to Detroit, where with his leg in a plaster cast, he was able to get the damaged self-starter and the car on which it was installed back into operation.

After further tests, Cadillac accepted Mr. Kettering's design and a two-year contract was awarded to Delco. Though it had been his desire to confine Delco’s activities to research and development and not to enter the manufacturing field, Mr. Kettering could find no electrical manufacturer at this time willing to produce the self-starter, as he had been able to do with his system of battery ignitions. It was therefore necessary to subcontract the production of some of the parts and to do the remaining manufacture and the assembly in a factory set up in Dayton. Deliveries of the self-starter on a commercial scale began in August and September. Twelve thousand selfstarters were installed on Cadillac cars in 1912.

Despite the opposition of certain technical men who were quite outspoken in their criticism, public acceptance of the self-starter was instantaneous and complete. In 1912 Cadillac received its second Dewar trophy, the highest award in motordom, for pioneering the electric starting, lighting and ignition system. In 1913, 46 per cent of the cars exhibited at the motor show in New York’s Grand Central Palace were equipped with electrical starters. Other makers got into the business, and by 1914 the proportion of cars using electrical starters had increased to 85%. Of the 141 cars with self-starters exhibited in 1914, 141 were provided with electrical starters as standard equipment, four with electrical starters as optional, five with compressed air starters, and one with an explosion system utilizing compressed acetylene gas.

The effect of the starting, lighting and ignition system on the industry as a whole was equally stimulating. Automobile production was nearly doubled in 1912 and the rate of growth was even more pronounced in the years immediately following popular acceptance of the self-starter in 1918. Naturally, the self-starter was not solely responsible for this continued expansion. There were numerous other factors, among them the six-cylinder engine, the closed body and installment buying — each of which contributed in part to the growth of the industry. But the importance of the self-starter was tremendous. More than any other single innovation on the automobile, it made the owner-driven car a reality. For the first time, women felt confident that they could drive without a man along to crank the engine. This simple fact alone accounted for doubling the number of potential automobile users.

Shortly after the successful establishment of the self-starter, Mr. Kettering began working on the invention of an independent electric generator for use in isolated farm houses, schools, camps and other buildings which could not be economically served by central station power. This work culminated in the Delco Light farm lighting system, which was placed on the market in 1914. The Domestic Engineering Company was founded to manufacture the units.

In 1916, Mr. Kettering and Mr. Deeds sold their interest in the Delco Company to the United Motors Corporation, which later became part of General Motors, under an arrangement by which they continued to be the chief officers of it. They then established the Dayton Research Laboratories in Dayton to work on a number of problems of interest and merit. One of these endeavors was the effort to find a cure for knock in the gasoline engine which some years later culminated in the discovery of the antiknock agent, tetraethyl lead.

After the entrance of the U. 8. into World War 1, which came about that time, the new research laboratory was the center of the wartime researchers headed by Mr. Kettering. One of these was the development of small automatic flying and manless bombing plane, or aerial torpedo, which was the predecessor of the guided missile of the present day.

In 1920 the new laboratory was taken over by General Motors and made the nucleus of an enlarged organization headed by Mr. Kettering, which became the General Motors Research Laboratories Division, and which was moved to Detroit in 1925.

Since 1920 Mr. Kettering’s activities have been so closely allied with those of the General Motors Research Laboratories that it is difficult to separate the one from the other. Mr. Kettering believes that research should be a cooperative enterprise involving the integrated talents of all sorts of engineers and technicians. He himself functioned as a sort of spark plug, setting off one scientific explosion after another. The development of a new bearing material, for example, might be the result of the concerted efforts of a dozen different technicians, but the personality and drive behind that development were Mr. Kettering’s.

A description of the important inventions and discoveries which came out of Mr. Kettering’s research organization would fill several thick volumes. Tetraethyl lead was discovered by the late Thomas Midgley, Jr., in research guided by Mr. Kettering. His associate in this was T. A. Boyd, who is now a GM Research Laboratories consultant. This substance forms the basis of Ethyl gasoline, and for many years it has been added as an antiknock agent to nearly all gasoline. This has made possible tremendous improvements in the performance and economy of gasoline engines. In 1926, the synthesis of the fluorine-chlorine compounds, a new family of refrigerants, was begun. Existing refrigerants, such as ammonia and sulphur dioxide, had undesirable properties which made them noxious or dangerous. The refrigerants developed by Mr. Kettering and his associates, however, are odorless, tasteless, non-corrosive, non-inflammable and non-toxic, and yet have all the properties necessary for a good refrigerant. Dichlorodifluoromethane, known as Freon, is a member of this family of com pounds.

These, however, are only a few of the large number of developments that took place at the General Motors Research Laboratories at this time. Other developments included the work on Durex bearings (1920); quick-drying lacquer finishes (1922); quick process malleable iron (1923); harmonic balancers, static and dynamic balancing machines, and four-wheel brakes (1924); crankcase ventilation, two filament headlamps, 10W and 20W winter oils, and the extraction of bromine from sea water (1925); engine oil coolers and two-way shock absorbers (1926); chromium plating; Inlox rubber bushings for spring shackles, and safety glass (192%); fatigue study of gears (1928); fixed focus headlamps and extreme-pressure lubricants (1929); resonance type intake and exhaust silencers, and the unit injector for Diesel engines (1930); variable-speed transmissions (1931); heat-resisting valve steel (1933); copper-lead bearings (1934); pearlitic malleable iron pistons (1935); permanent-mold centrifugally-cast brake drums (1936); pearlitic malleable iron camshafts and tellurim treated malleable iron (1937); wear-resistant cylinder iron and molybdenum-manganese-silicon steel (1938); powered-iron metallurgy and grooved and tinned plated piston rings (1939); silver bearings, and copper-nickel matrix corrosion-resistant lead bearings (1940); high compression automotive engine (1947).

One of the outstanding contributions to transportation made by the GM Research Laboratories is the two-cycle Diesel engine, used in Diesel locomotives, marine installations and stationary power plants. This development, which was started in 1929, resulted in completely revolutionizing railroad equipment and operation.

The same Diesel engines were adopted by the Navy for submarines. These have been produced in large quantities. This fact is illustrative of the adaptability of a fundamental research development. More recent research has resulted in still smaller and lighter high-output Diesels. These engines are now powering Naval craft of many kinds, as well as large trucks and buses, tanks, and mobile power plants. This was a research development which is of equal usefulness either in peace or in war.

As early as 1937 the Research Laboratories, under Mr. Kettering’s supervision, began an intensive program of marine development in close cooperation with the Navy. When the United States entered the war in December, 1941, the results of this program were already in production and available. Another important research contribution to the war effort in which Mr. Kettering and his men had a large part was the development of improved means of producing and utilizing

high-octane fuels. The high output and light weight of the aircraft engines of World War II was made possible by these high-octane fuels. Immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the laboratories were placed on a full wartime basis with over g5 per cent of facilities engaged in projects directly connected with the Army and Navy.

In the military field the Research Laboratories functioned in the same way as in prewar commercial activities. The laboratories assisted the armed services and cooperated in the development of such things as the marine propeller, aerial torpedo, gyro flight control instruments, heavy duty lubricants, earth inductor compass, pedograph and improved metals.

Mr. Kettering has always regarded the Research Laboratories as a place where new industries and new employment opportunities are created. New industries, created by research, he believes, will do much to solve our economic problems. “We are not at the end of our progress,” he says, “but at the beginning. We have but reached the shores of a great unexplored continent. We cannot turn back. There is no other direction to go but forward. It is man’s destiny to ponder on the riddle of existence and, as a by-product of his wonderment, to create a new life on this earth.” Mr. Kettering shares no brief with those who say we have advanced our technology too far, or that we should declare a moratorium on invention. A vigorous advocate of industrial preparedness, he maintains that we have more to fear from the unemployment of technology than from technological unemployment, since without the former we need never fear the latter.

Mr. Kettering’s widespread activities have led him into many fields of endeavor, although industrial research is still his most absorbing interest. The C. F. Kettering Foundation for the Study of Chlorophyll and Photosynthesis was founded in 1925 at Antioch College to study the problem of, as Mr. Kettering calls it, “why grass is green.” This research body has contributed much fundamental information concerning the structure of the chlorophyll molecule and the mechanism of photosynthesis. Another fundamental research undertaking sponsored by Mr. Kettering was the fever therapy research project at the Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, Ohio. One of the products of this project was the invention of the Kettering Hyperthem, used in fever therapy work by many of the leading hospitals of the country. Regarding these fundamental research projects, Mr. Kettering says: “If we are trying to move something with a block and tackle, we have a stake out ahead. This advanced research is exactly like driving the advance stakes. We can’t pull our load very far with each stake, and just the minute we stop driving advance stakes, we can pull the load only up to where the last stake is. That is where progress stops, so we must always have new things way out ahead of the line whether we can see any practical advantage to them or not.”

Another far-reaching activity to which Mr. Kettering has given his support and active aid is the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, announced Aug. 8, 1945, in which he and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., chairman of General Motors, linked themselves as cosponsors and active trustees. The project was given large financial support by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which provided funds for research projects and a building erected as part of the Memorial Cancer Center in New York City.

“I was greatly honored by Mr. Sloan when he joined my name with his in setting up the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research,” said Mr. Kettering at the time the cancer project was announced. “My contribution to this most worthwhile effort will be largely to help supply the general types of techniques long employed in industrial scientific research. All this must be done through the medical profession. Mr. Sloan and I over the years have worked on many apparently hopeless industrial problems which today seem so simple that I am inclined to think we can apply some of our time-tried techniques to this age-old problem.”

When World War II broke out in Europe with the attack of Germany on Poland in September, 1939, the United States government enlisted Mr. Kettering’s talents to assist the armed service in developing and improving the new weapons of mechanized warfare. In August, 1940, the Secretary of Commerce announced the establishment of a National Inventors Council as a central government clearing house where inventions and suggestions of value to national defense might be submitted. Mr. Kettering was appointed chairman of this council. Associated with him were Dr. George Baekeland, Rear Admiral H. G. Bowen, Dr. William D. Collidge, Watson Davis, Dr. F. M. Feiker, Webster N. Jones, Lawrence Langner, Brig. Gen. Earl McFarland, Thomas Midgley, Jr., Dr. Fin Sparre, Maj. Gen. W. H. Tschappat, Orville Wright and Fred M. Zeder.

During the first six months of operation, the council received 16,000 communications containing inventions or inventive ideas. A surprisingly large proportion of these possessed sufficient merit to warrant serious consideration. A number was accepted for use by the Army and Navy and other government agencies.

In 1941 Mr. Kettering accepted from President Roosevelt appointment as chairman of the National Patent Planning Commission, a body authorized by Congress in 1940, which had as fellow members Chester C. Davis, Edward F. McGrady, Francis P. Gaines and Owen D. Young. It completed its study with a report in 1945. In addition to his duties with General Motors, Mr. Kettering is chairman of C. F. Kettering, Inc.; chairman of the board and director of the Flexible Co. director of the Ethyl Corporation; vice president and trustee, Charles F. Kettering Foundation; chairman of the board and director of the Winters National Bank & Trust Co.; director of the National Cash Register Co.; director of the Mead Corporation. He is a trustee of Antioch College, Ohio State University and the National Geographic Society, and president of the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation. He is intensely interested in the subject of progressive education.

Mr. Kettering is a Fellow of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and National Academy of Sciences. He served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1945, and of the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1918.

He is also a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, American Chemical Society, American Forestry Association, American Geographical Society, American Museum of Natural History, American National Red Cross, American Social Hygiene Association, American Society of the French Legion of Honor, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society for Testing Materials, American Society for Metals, American Physical Society, American Philosophical Society, Army Ordnance Association, Dayton Automobile Club, Engineering Society of Detroit, National Aeronautic Association, National Child Labor Association, National Recreation Association, National Gas Engine Association, New York Museum of Science and Industry, Newcomen Society, Ohio Academy of Science, Ohio State University Alumni Association, Societe de la Legion of Honor, and Society of Military Engineers.

Mr. Kettering was one of the founders of the Engineers Club of Dayton, and is part donor, along with Colonel Deeds, of the Club’s home. He has been active in supporting numerous scientific and educational organizations.

The University of Michigan conferred the degree of Doctor of Engineering on Mr. Kettering on June 18, 1929. The University of Cincinnati in 1928 honored him with the degree of Doctor of Science. His alma mater — Ohio State University — gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering on June 11, 1929.

He has been honored by degrees from thirty-two colleges and universities; by twenty-eight medals and awards including the Washington Award, the ASME Medal, and the John Fritz Medal; by numerous certificates and citations; and by more than fifteen honorary and life memberships.

On August 1, 1905, Mr. Kettering married Miss Olive Williams of Ashland, Ohio. He has one son, Eugene Williams Kettering, married and living in Hinsdale, Ill. Three grandchildren, a boy and two girls, make up the Kettering family.

Mrs. Kettering died in May, 1946.

Mr. Kettering resides at Ridgeleigh Terrace, Dayton, Ohio, and also maintains an apartment at the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit.