Henry Jamison Handy (b. 1886, d. 1983)
This post will be most appreciated by Craig, I think, so I will dedicate it to him. The video above accompanies it.
- Olympic breaststroke swimmer (bronze medal winner), inventor of new swimming strokes, water polo player, maker of scores of training/ informational films. All these and more make up the man called Jam Handy.
- During and after college, Handy worked for the Chicago Tribune in advertising.
- He observed that enthusiastic salespeople who were siked about their products sold more and began to study what made people buy.
- Handy left the Tribune and began work at a company that used slides to train workers. This segued into Handy making instructional, informational films.
- WWI gave Handy the opportunity to make films training soldiers on equipment.
- Jam Handy Organizations was formed - their largest customer was the auto industry.
- It is estimated that Handy produced over 7,000 films during WWII and is reported to have taken only 1% of the revenue as profit.
- He didn’t have a desk and thought pockets were a waste of time, so none of his suits had them.
- Handy kept on swimming up until a few days before his death - what a spry old man!
