Powel Crosley
The last thing I posted had to do with records - remember? I was saying that I understood record shopping now and was becoming a collector? What the heck is this thing popping up on the right side of the tumblr interface every time I type a question mark? Let people answer this?!? That’s weird. Who likes cats as much as I do? Who’s in the mood for food but are not sure what kind? Anyway, it took me from February up until now to read the little information/product pamphlet that came with my record player. Most people throw these things out, but I like to keep them around until I have a chance to read them - and it’s a good thing I did! Oh my GOD. I can’t find it! I was just going on about how I’ve had this thing around since February and when I actually need it, I have no idea where it is!! Wow. I looked again. No luck. I guess I am just going to have to see what Wikipedia has to say about him.
Actually, all I really wanted to say about him was what he achieved. Here’s the list:
- Pioneered the idea of the “money back guarantee.”
- Helped make radios affordable for the mass market.
- Invented the second car radio and the first push-button radio.
- Owned most powerful radio transmitter ever and a radio station to go along with it, WLW.
- Created some of the earliest soap operas.
- Founded a TV station, WLWT-TV.
- Invented the Icyball, a non-electrical refrigerator.
- Introduced the idea of shelves on the door of refrigerators with the Shelvador (as I was typing that, Shelvador Dali popped into my head).
- Bought the Cincinnati Reds.
- Renamed the stadium Crosley Stadium.
- Held the first night baseball games, lit with electric lights.
- Owned and built airplanes but never had a pilot’s license.
- Was a renowned fisherman.
- Owned several yachts with powerful engines.
- Owned an island in Canada called Nikassi and another off South Carolina called Bull Island.
- Owned houses in the Caribbean and Havana and a retreat in Indiana that is now called the Crosley Fish and Wildlife Area.
- Crosley Motors, Inc. invented a small, affordable automobile.
- Crosley Corporation manufactured the proximity fuze, which, after the atomic bomb and radar, was the most important product development during WWII.
- Introduced the first car to have disc brakes.
- Invented the first fax machine.
- Was responsible for the first radio broadcast from an airplane.
- Invented X-ervac, a device that supposedly stimulated blood flow in the scalp through massage and thus countered baldness.
Are you as surprised as I am that you hadn’t heard of him before? The only thing more surprising than all of Crosley’s achievements is the fact that I can’t find the pamphlet I was going to use to blog with. That dog in the picture up there is named Bonzo and he was Crosley’s answer to the RCA dog. There’s even a paper maiche Bonzo at the Smithsonian. He was so cute that his likeness was put on ashtrays, pincushions and candy, to name a few.
