House of Invention: The Extraordinary Evolution of Everyday Objects

by Dave Lindsay

Book Overview

This text provides a thorough description of an aerodynamic design and analysis system for axial-flow compressors. It describes the basic fluid dynamic and thermodynamic principles, empirical models... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558217401
• ISBN13: 9781558217409
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Offbeat book on the origins of everyday products

"House of Invention" is a spry, anecdotal account of (mostly) obscure inventors and their inventions. Inspiration for new products could come from many sources. For instance, a champagne cork in the eye led to the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper.The inventor, Robert Kearns is still in the process of suing the big auto manufacturers for stealing his patent. Chrysler and Ford have already paid off, but there are still GM, Saab, Honda, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes, etc. that refuse to acknowledge their theft. Mr. Kearns plans to spend the rest of his life in court, and I hope he keeps winning. As the author of "The House of Invention" puts it:"In the annals of technology, tales of corporate abuse are strewn across the American century like so many highway accidents, and in a sense, Kearns has fought for the many inventors who ended up as roadkill."Nikola Tesla did not profit from his invention of the alternating-current electrical motor as much as did the company that was to become General Electric. Eventually GE, under the leadership of J. P. Morgan also did in Thomas Edison and his championship of direct current (although one does not usually think of the Wizard of Menlo Park as roadkill.) Then there was George Squier, inventor of the `wire-wireless' technology that allowed radio signals to travel through a telephone line (the precursor to `Muzak'), who was robbed of his patent by AT & T.Overall, this is a very light-hearted, irreverent book about inventors, but it does have its serious moments. In addition to the numerous inventors who ended up cheated and broke, there is also the graphic story of how alternating current triumphed over direct current as the preferred method of capital punishment.My favorite stories involve the invention of the pencil by the ancient Egyptians, who also came up with the first door lock, and the invention of the flat-bottomed paper bag by the American, Margaret Knight. The author tells tales of many eccentrics, including the man who invented Vaseline and then ate a spoonful of the stuff daily for the rest of his life (he died in his nineties).Here was someone who truly believed in his product.

Little Known Ironies of Inventing Everyday Objects

Mr. Lindsay is an engaging story teller, which makes this book interesting to read. He has taken the process of invention and marketing the subsequent common products and turned them into humorous tales of delicious irony. The book is organized along the lines of rooms in a person's life: bathroom, kitchen, foyer, office, garage, family room, and bedroom. Each one has three inventions: bathroom (disposable razor, Vaseline, and hair straightener); kitchen (frozen food, blender, and breakfast cereal); foyer (intercom, bank notes?, locks and keys); office (Muzak, pencil, electrical outlet); garage (intermittent windshield wiper, standard screw thread, and flat-bottomed paper bag); family room (television, exercise machine, and solitaire); and bedroom (brassiere, shatterproof glasses, and condom).Although I was familiar with the invention of 6 of these items, I did not know all of the ironies involved. So unless you are a historian of inventions, you will probably learn a lot here.One of the interesting ironies is that many of these inventors were also idealists who were as interested in improving the human condition as they were in inventing. Unfortunately, they were considerably less successful in their utopian pursuits than in their inventing. For example, King Gillette (who made the first disposable safety razor blade) had an idea for a new kind of city where the whole country would live near Niagara Falls to take advantage of the power there from the falls. Later he conceived of a new company where everyone would work for it, be an owner, and live in Texas. Both books about these concepts did not sell well, nor did his concepts see fruition. John Harvey Kellogg, the co-inventor of breakfast cereal, was interested in optimal living regimens. His more practical younger brother and co-inventor, W.K. Kellogg, built the cereal company. The promotional side was often quite extreme. Alfred C. Hobbs went around picking competitors' locks around the world to win prize money and fame for his own locks. He arranged to have letters of introduction when he traveled so the local police would not mistake him for a burglar. Edison encouraged demonstrations of electrocutions of animals to warn against the dangers of alternating current (and to promote his invention of direct current). The first video game (an early version of Pong) was put together as a visitors' exhibit at Brookhaven National Laboratory in a display of Atoms for Peace.The inventions often led to vicious competitions for credit. When Robert Kearns invented the intermittent windshield wiper, he quickly shared it with Ford. Ford began to use it without paying him, and others soon copies Ford. Kearns spent most of his life in litigation, serving as his own attorney. Eventually, he collected millions, but only after sacrificing most of his productive life to the law suit. Margaret Knight showed her invention of the flat-bottom paper bag to a visitor, and he later claimed a paten

No one appreciates a genius

Suppose you had an old tea chest, a "bull's-eye" lens from a bicycle light, some sealing wax, glue, surplus army wire, knitting needles, a hat box, serrated biscuit tin, ordinary lamp and electric fan -- do you think you could make a basic television set? Scotsman John Logie Baird did, thus inventing the basics of television in 1922. The first TV broadcast was that of a Maltese cross, transmitted a distance of at least two feet. It's one of the delightful stories on the nature of inventions offered by David Lindsay, which is really a series about the oddball habits and ideas of people who invent things. When 16-year-old Polly Jacobs was dressing for an evening party in 1914, she rebelled against the masses of undergarments then worn by all respectable ladies. Her response, Lindsay says, was to tell her maid "Bring me two of my pocket handkerchiefs, and some pink ribbon ... and bring the needle and thread and some pins into my bedroom." A few minutes later, she emerged with the first brassiere. When Thomas Edison wanted to promote the use of direct current and discredit alternating current, his lab paid neighborhood urchins to round up stray dogs and cats. They were then electrocuted with alternating current, or as the media of the day reported, the process was "to be Westinghoused." Lindsay has a keen eye for the little oddities, roadblocks, persistence and showmanship that moves new ideas into popular use; plus, sometimes, the outright theft of new ideas by major corporations. Anyone who's ever come up with a fresh idea can appreciate and sympathize with the fate, follies and fortunes of men and women who never lost faith in their own bright ideas. It's a book about the personality of inventors, which is very different than that of people who merely improve existing products. When King Camp Gillette invented the first disposable razor, he came up with the first new idea in shaving in thousands of years. Invention of the "double blade" is hardly in the same category, despite the fervent pleas of advertising executives. Inventors are oddballs, Lindsay writes, ". . . perhaps it's because human folly is intimately bound up with the actual work of inventing. Doing the `wrong thing,' after all, is not so very different from doing the new thing. "Put the other way around, if so many inventions start as mistakes, it's probably because some humans are especially prone to making them," Lindsay writes. That is the key to his delightful book, a brief survey of 21 everyday items that are so common we scarcely think of them as being "invented." It'll give heart to everyone who's ever wondered about an original idea. Frozen food? Yup. it had to be invented. Clarence Birdseye, spending a winter in northern Canada, saw how quickly fish caught by the Inuit were frozen solid -- and later thawed out and eaten with no loss of taste. For how many thousands of years had that been done? Until Birdseye, no one

A lively survey & history of inventions & the American home.

House Of Invention provides some involving stories in the world of invention and the effects of science on the American home, providing a fun survey of the companies and individuals involved in making products for consumers. Science, technology and consumer use blend in a lively survey of how common household products were developed.

Good history of some things and their inventors

Are all inventors wacky? Well, maybe not all, but certainly some -- and a number of them are detailed here, along with what they invented. Lindsay takes three inventions from each room of the house and discusses them. Some of the info is not terribly new if you read this kind of thing, but I would guess most people don't. Even so, he adds some info not usually found in previous writings about those same inventions.