Hiram Percy Maxim
Hiram Percy Maxim | |
---|---|
Hiram Stevens Maxim | |
Relatives | Hudson Maxim (uncle) |
Call sign | W1AW (most notable) |
Hiram Percy Maxim (September 2, 1869 – February 17, 1936) was an American radio pioneer and inventor, and co-founder (with Clarence D. Tuska) of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Hiram Percy Maxim is credited with inventing and selling the first commercially successful firearm silencer, and also with developing mufflers for internal combustion engines.
Early years
He was the son of Sir
Beginning in 1892, Maxim worked at the American Projectile Company of Lynn, Massachusetts, and tinkered nights on his own internal combustion engine. He admitted his ignorance of engine developments in Germany by
In early 1895, Maxim visited Colonel
In 1899, with Maxim at the controls, the Pope Columbia, a gasoline-powered automobile, won the first closed-circuit automobile race in the U.S. at Branford, Connecticut. Columbia continued to produce gasoline cars until 1913, and was also a major manufacturer of early electric automobiles and trucks.
From 1902 through 1909, Maxim was largely focused on inventing, building, marketing, and selling firearm silencers. He also developed mufflers for internal combustion engines using much the same technology.
Marriage and family
He married Josephine Hamilton, the daughter of the former Maryland Governor William T. Hamilton December 21, 1898, in Hagerstown, Maryland.[6] They lived in Hartford, and had a son, Hiram Hamilton Maxim, and a daughter, Percy Hamilton Maxim, who married John Glessner Lee (grandson of John J. Glessner). The John J. Glessner House designed by Henry Hobson Richardson is now a Chicago landmark.
Percy Maxim Lee (1906–2002) was president of the League of Women Voters from 1950–1958 and was appointed by President Kennedy to the Consumer Advisory Council, which she later chaired. She advocated for debates between presidential candidates and testified in the U.S. Senate against Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1955.
Accomplishments
Firearm and auto industries
Hiram Percy Maxim is usually credited with inventing and selling the first commercially successful firearm
Radio
He created the American Radio Relay League (
Cinema
Maxim founded the Amateur Cinema League in New York in 1926; he was elected president. The Amateur Cinema League published a monthly journal, Movie Makers.
Literature
Maxim wrote the book Life's Place in the Cosmos, published in 1933, an overview of contemporary science that surmised life existed outside of earth; as well as two books published in 1936: A Genius in the Family: Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim Through a Small Son's Eyes an amusing account of his youth, and Horseless Carriage Days wherein he recounted his days as an automobile pioneer.
Death
Hiram Percy Maxim was on a trip by rail in February 1936 from his home in Hartford, Connecticut, to Flagstaff, Arizona, to visit the Lowell Observatory. He fell ill and was taken from the train to a hospital in La Junta, Colorado, where he died the following day, February 17, 1936. Hiram P. Maxim was buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown, Maryland, in the Hamilton family plot belonging to his wife's family.[13][14]
In popular culture
Maxim's aforementioned autobiography of his youth, A Genius in the Family was adapted in 1946 into a comedy-drama film produced by Universal Pictures titled, So Goes My Love while the UK release used the same title as the book. Bobby Driscoll plays Maxim in the film, with Don Ameche and Myrna Loy playing his parents, Hiram Stephens Maxim and Jane Bidden Maxim.
Patents
- U.S. patent 594,805: Motor vehicle (battery electric vehicle)
- U.S. patent 757,941: Motor vehicle running gear
- U.S. patent 772,571: Electric motor vehicle
- U.S. patent 845,106: Motor road vehicle
- U.S. patent 916,885: Silent Firearm Issued March 30, 1909.
Books
- Life's Place in the Cosmos, New York: D. Appleton, 1933.
- A Genius in the Family, New York: Harper, 1936.
- Horseless Carriage Days, New York: Harper, 1936.
See also
- Suppressor
Biography
- Schumacher, Alice Clink, Hiram Percy Maxim, Father of Amateur Radio, Great Falls, MT: Schumachers, 1970.
References
- ^ "Noise's Bogeyman". Time. January 4, 1932. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
While mental hygienists, efficiency experts and city officials have been bewailing the maddening effects of city noise, Hiram Percy Maxim has been manufacturing noise mufflers at Hartford, Conn. Last week he announced that his Maxim Silencer Co., of which he is president and his only son Hiram Hamilton is chief engineer and whose factory is in Asylum Street, Hartford, will—besides continuing to make silencers for guns, motor exhausts, safety valves, air releases, in fact every kind of pipe which emits a gas—offer a consulting service in noise abatement.
- ^ Maxim, Hiram Percy. A Genius in the Family, Lateral Science. Accessed August 6, 2019. "We moved to Fanwood, New Jersey, in the spring of 1875. My father used to come out from New York on Saturday afternoons and remain with us until Monday morning."
- ^ "Hiram Percy Maxim", MIT Museum
- ^ "A Diversified Mind: Hiram Percy Maxim". Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project. September 2, 2018. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
- ^ Maxim, Hiram Percy. Horseless Carriage Days. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1962 (1936), p. 12, 47.
- ^ Maxim, Hiram Percy (October 22, 1923). U.S. passport application (Report).
- ^ "US Patent 958935 - Google Patents".
- ISBN 978-0-8117-4694-6.
During the early 1900s, Hiram Percy Maxim designed and patented gun silencers. His efforts were directed toward both military and sporting arms and resulted in his forming the Maxim Silencer Company, Hartford, Conn.
- ISBN 978-0-19-509354-4.
- ^ Gage (1913). Electrical Record and Buyer's Reference. New York: Buyers' Reference Company. p. 53.
- ISBN 978-1-4766-1334-5.
- ^ "ARRL Board Confers Awards and Recognitions". www.arrl.org. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
- New York Times. February 18, 1936. Retrieved April 25, 2008.
- New York Times. February 23, 1936. Retrieved August 21, 2007.. As an ardent wireless amateur Mr. Maxim is remembered by veteran experimenters of pre-war days by the musical tone of his quench spark gap which spelled out the call letters of his pioneer station.
Radio amateurs, numbering more than 45,000 in the United States, are mourning the loss of a friend and faithful ally in the passing of Hiram Percy Maxim of Hartford, Connecticut
External links
- Hiram Percy Maxim at Find a Grave
- Hiram Percy Maxim Collection, Northeast Historic Film
- The Columbia Automobile pages
- Hudson Maxim papers (1851–1925) at Hagley Museum and Library. The collection contains some correspondence from Hiram.