Inventor and industrial research leader Charles F. Kettering was born on August 29, 1876, on a farm near Loudonville, Ohio. Over a career spanning automotive engineering, household technology, and industrial manufacturing, he earned more than 180 U.S. patents and became one of the central figures in the development of organized corporate research.
Kettering’s most consequential achievement was the electric automobile starting system developed through the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, or Delco, which he co-founded with Edward A. Deeds in 1909. Introduced on the 1912 Cadillac, the system replaced the strenuous and sometimes dangerous hand crank with electric starting, ignition, and lighting equipment. By making automobiles simpler and safer to operate, it helped expand driving beyond people with the strength, training, or assistance needed to crank an engine by hand.
Delco also produced the Delco-Light system, a self-contained generator that brought electric light and small-scale power to farms and other places not yet served by electrical lines. After Delco became part of General Motors, Kettering served as GM’s vice president and director of research from 1920 to 1947. During that period, research under his leadership contributed to advances including safety glass, four-wheel brakes, quick-drying automotive finishes, diesel locomotives, and Freon-12 refrigerant for refrigerators and air conditioners. Kettering’s legacy lies not only in individual inventions, but also in his belief that industrial laboratories could turn scientific and mechanical experimentation into widely used products, helping to make the automobile, household electricity, refrigeration, and modern mass manufacturing more practical parts of everyday life.
Image: Charles F. Kettering, pictured with his first electric starter via Wikimedia Commons
