Charles F. Brush

Charles Francis Brush (March 17, 1849 – June 15, 1929) was a U.S. inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Born in Euclid Township, Ohio, Brush was raised on a farm about 10 miles from downtown Cleveland. As a youngster, he had a great interest in science, particularly with electrical lighting; he tinkered with and built simple electrical devices, experimenting in a workshop on his parents farm. Brush attended Central High School in Cleveland. He received his college education from the University of Michigan, where he studied mining engineering (there were no such majors -- as there are today -- in electrical engineering). At Michigan, Brush was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Brush invented an arc lamp that was superior to the existing Yablochkov candle. After working in various partnerships, and in different fields (including iron ore sales and chemistry), Brush went on to build his 'dynamo' (an electrical generator), which became the central power system for his arc light. In 1879 he formed the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation in Lambeth, London, England. This company eventually moved to Loughborough England and became Brush Electrical Machines Ltd. In 1880, he established the Brush Electric Company, which eventually merged to become part of General Electric in 1891. In 1882 the Brush Electric Company supplied generating equipment for a hydroelectric power plant at St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, which was the first to generate electricity from water power in the United States. Between 1910 and 1929 he wrote several papers on his version of a kinetic theory of gravitation, based on some sort of electromagnetic waves. He died on June 15, 1929.

Legacy

Charles F. Brush High School in Lyndhurst, Ohio is named after Brush, whose sports teams and other groups are named the "Arcs," after Brush's lamp.

Honors

• Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1899).

External links

• Charles F. Brush biography