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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1
What Has to Give?
2
Will a Night at the Movies Change Forever?
2
We Can Help Ease Your Financial Burden After an Accident
3
Have Celebrity Divorces Always Been Crazy?
3
Easy Foil-Grilled Sausage and Vegetables
4
Did You Know These Inventors Are From STL?
LOCAL INVENTORS WHO’VE MADE THEIR MARK INGENUITY FROM ST. LOUIS
Betsy Ancker-Johnson's Plasma Workshop Betsy Ancker-Johnson was born in St. Louis in 1929, and she defied society’s expectations for women over and over in her scientific career. Thanks to her mother, who told her to go after her passions, Ancker-Johnson studied physics and engineering and earned a PhD in physics. She went on to become a lecturer, inventor, and senior research physicist! Her career was an amazing success. She specialized in plasma research, invented a new type of high-frequency signal generator in the 1960s, and was the very first researcher to observe a particular kind of microwave emission from an electron-hole plasma. (We don’t understand it either, but she sure did!) Ancker-Johnson passed away in 2020 after decades paving the way for women in science. Just for Fun … There’s widespread agreement about Baker’s and Ancker- Johnson’s inventions, but some inventions have a murkier origin. The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was said to be the birthplace of food inventions including hot dogs, hamburgers, iced tea, club sandwiches, cotton candy, and ice cream cones.
From a self-taught engineer who was born into slavery and later invented the friction radiator to a brilliant female physicist who pioneered advances in the plasma field, St. Louis is home to some ingenious individuals. Since August is National Inventors Month, we’re taking a look at a few game-changing inventors and the people behind them you may never have heard of. Charles S.L. Baker’s Friction Radiator Charles S.L. Baker was born into slavery in 1859 and suffered the loss of his mother in his first year of life. He was raised primarily by his father, who worked as an express agent on railroad cars. This had a tremendous influence on Baker’s interest in the mechanics of wagons and linchpins. With no formal education, Baker began a self-study of mechanical engineering and followed his interest in the power of friction to create heat. After over 20 years of experimenting, Baker invented and patented the friction radiator in 1903 and began making them in his own factory. Looking back, Baker’s invention is especially notable because it does not require combustion of fossil fuels to produce heat. The language wasn’t used back then, but Baker’s invention was entirely green.
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