1893 - Technology

Technology

The Gleason Gear Planer perfected by Rochester, New York, inventor Kate Gleason, 27, with her father produces beveled gears faster and more cheaply than any comparable machine. Gleason began working at her father's 1000 University Avenue machine-tool factory on Saturdays at age 12 and has been secretary-treasurer since 1890; Detroit's fledgling auto industry will buy the Planer (see housing, 1919).

Industrial chemist Arthur D. Little demonstrates the Schultz process that will revolutionize the leather industry with chrome tanning (see Little, 1886; 1894).

Gunsmith Horace Smith dies at Chicopee, Massachusetts, January 15 at age 84, having sold his interest in Smith & Wesson Company to Daniel Wesson in July 1873; engineer-inventor Stephen Wilcox of Babcock & Wilcox dies at Brooklyn, New York, November 27 at age 63; George H. Babcock at Plainfield, New Jersey, December 16 at age 61.