A French monk in response to the need for more reliable cooling at wineries invented a hermetically sealed system which later became the model for the first hermetic systems used for household refrigerators by General Electric, Frigidaire and other manufacturers. Abbe Audiffren taught Physics at the Seminary and he [...]
Clark Orr, a GE senior engineer at the GE Center for Innovation in Schenectady, NY, borrowed from the Audiffren Dumbbell refrigerating machine which GE manufactured in Fort Wayne, IN to develop the first hermetically sealed household refrigerating machine. Encouraged by Walter Goll and P.C. Morganthaler, the Fort Wayne Works [...]
In the early 1930’s a young inventor presented his idea for adding shelves to the door of a refrigerator cabinet to all the leading manufacturers of the day. They unanimously rejected the idea as crude and tacky all except one company. Powell Crosley of the Crosley Corporation listened to [...]
The sentiments of this poem, published in the monthly Copeland Ice Cube, were surely put to a severe test as it appeared with the Great Depression looming on the horizon. Copeland itself did not survive the coming bad years but, managed to reorganize under the guidance of the “Four [...]
Fairfield is a little town but, a progressive powerhouse. The county seat of Jefferson County has an abundance of start up companies and is one of Iowa’s economic superstars. Also known as little Silicon Valley, it is governed by a seven member city council. Back in 1928, the city [...]
Innovations often spring forth born from problems in the field. Refrigeration service personnel have provided more than maintenance of systems in the field. They have often helped move the industry ahead with new ideas and improvements and they continue to be a vital link between the manufacturer and the [...]
Charles Leonard, like Lord Kelvin, was always thinking of a better way. Perhaps that is why he set that pail of lard in the ice box and forgot about it as his fertile mind wandered. The anguished cry of Mrs. Leonard interrupted his thoughts and when he gazed upon [...]
When the G.E. Monitor Top refrigerator appeared in the 1920’s it was considered to be the first to employ a hermetic compressor. At that same time though, Herbert C. Kellogg of the Liquid Cooler Corporation was also working on a unique hermetic compressor. System manufacturers recognized some of the [...]
Imagine a refrigeration compressor with only three moving parts and no valves. The “Rollator” rotary compressor introduced by Norge in the 1920’s used only three moving parts submersed in oil. Like the reciprocating compressors, it had a piston and a cylinder but instead of the piston moving up and [...]
The Audiffren-Singrun “Dumbbell” refrigeration machine played a part in the development of two of the most popular domestic refrigerators, the Frigidaire and the General Electric “Monitor Top”. Reuben Bechtold and Alfred Mellowes worked at the Fort Wayne General Electric manufacturing plant that made the Audiffren-Singrun refrigerating machines. Mellowes, an engineer, [...]
