Innovators

Henry Ford You Can Have Any Color As Long
As It Is Black

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed and manufactured the first automobile that many middle class Americans could afford to buy. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry.

Any Man Who Works for Me Makes $5 a Day

The Ford Motor Company was one of several hundred small automobile manufacturers that emerged between 1890 and 1910. Ford produced the Model T from 1908 to 1927 which was simple and light, yet sturdy enough to drive on the country’s primitive roads. The mass production of this automobile lowered its unit price, making it affordable for the average consumer. As his company flourished, Ford substantially increased his workers’ wages as a way of combating absenteeism and employee turnover. 
This free-standing work combines two visual elements: Henry Ford driving an early quadricycle mounted on a wooden box car and repetitive pictures of an early car frame on the assembly line.

Edison Mazda

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. 
This construction shows a hand colored Thomas Edison holding a large light bulb, an opened box with a picture of Edison as a young man with US postage stamps commemorating his invention with the inside top of the box with a schematic of an early light bulb. Outside the box is a National Mazda advertisement surrounded by light bulbs in wired electrical sockets on a background of marbleized paper. Mazda was a trademarked name registered by General Electric in 1909 for its incandescent light bulbs. The name was chosen because it means “light of wisdom” in the Avestan language.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator. His research on hearing and speech led him to experiment with hearing devices that eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first US patent for the telephone in 1876. This odd-shaped, visually arresting construction brings together the series of events that led to the invention of the telephone, including photocopies of the original patent filing.

John Vincent Atanasoff

John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor best known for inventing the first electronic digital computer in the 1930s at Iowa State College. Challenges to his claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer. His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer. This construction uses a medicine cabinet that opens to a schematic of the original computer design, a picture of Atanasoff in the 1930s and an IBM punch card. Various schematics of electronic switches are used as wallpaper in the self-supporting structure with an open door.