Powel Crosley Jr.
Powel Crosley Jr. (September 18, 1886 – March 28, 1961) was an American inventor, industrialist, and entrepreneur. He and his brother Lewis were responsible for many firsts in consumer products and broadcasting. He was the builder of the Crosley automobile and played a major role in support of the U.S. military effort in World War II. He was the owner of the Cincinnati Reds major league baseball team for many years. Crosley Field, a stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, was named for him.
- "I believe that every American who can afford ANY car should have an opportunity to buy a brand new, truly FINE car."
- Powel Crosley Jr., President, Crosley Motors, Inc.
Youth, education
Powel Crosley Jr. was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Charlotte and Powel Crolsey, a lawyer. He graduated from high school in 1901 and from the Ohio Military Institute in 1905. He attended the University of Cincinnati, but was obsessed with the mechanics of automobiles. The mass production techniques employed by Henry Ford also caught his attention.
Early career with automobiles and parts
In 1907, Crosley formed a company to build an inexpensive automobile, the Marathon Six, in Connersville, Indiana. It failed. From there, Crosley traveled to Indianapolis where he went to work for Carl G. Fisher as a shop hand in the Fisher Automobile Company. That job ended when he broke his arm starting a car. From there he went to work for several auto manufacturers in Indianapolis and Muncie, Indiana. Although he often claimed that he was slotted to be a driver in the Indianapolis 500, this was a bit of a stretch. He tried but was unable to find anyone to sponsor him.
Powel returned to Cincinnati in 1910 and married Gwendolyn B. Aiken. They had two children during the next five years. Powel made several additional failed attempts to manufacturer economy cars before finding success in auto parts. In 1916, he co-founded the American Automobile Accessory Company. The next year he purchased the business, and added his own gadgets and ideas to the products. His best seller was a tire re-liner, which mail order giant Sears soon picked up. Another popular product was a flag holder that held five American flags and clamped to auto radiator caps. World War I generated patriotism and thousands were sold. Crosley's two secrets of success were his ability to invent useful gadgets and the business sense of his brother Lewis M. Crosley. By 1919, Powel and Lewis Crosley had sold more than a million dollars in parts and were diversifying into other consumer products such as phonographs.
Consumer products
In 1920, Crosley first selected independent local dealers as the best way to take his products to market. He insisted that all sellers of his products must give the consumer the best in parts, service, and satisfaction. Always sensitive to consumers, his products were often less expensive than other name brands, but were guaranteed. Crosley's "money back guarantee" paved the way for some of today's most outstanding sales policies.
Pup radios and Bonzo
In the early 1920s, his young son asked for a radio, then a new item, and Crosley was shocked at the prices for such a "toy" at a local department store, all in excess of $100. Instead, he purchased a publication called "ABC of Radio" on how to build one yourself, got the parts and did so. Soon, he was mass-assembling the devices which sold for $20 each. By the mid-1920s, Crosley Radio Corporation had become the largest radio manufacturer in the world. The slogan "You’re There With A Crosley" was used in all its advertisements.
In 1925, Crosley introduced a small 1-tube regenerative radio called the "Crosley Pup" that sold for $9.75. While RCA Victor had Nipper (its mascot from the famous logo showing the dog listening to "his master's voice" from a phonograph), Crosley also adopted a mascot in the form of a dog with headphones listening to one of his "Pup" radios. In the 1920s, a cute, pudgy little dog named Bonzo, a creation of British artist George E. Studdy, was the inspiration for much commercial merchandise, such as cuddly and mechanical toys, ashtrays, pincushions, trinket boxes, car mascots, jigsaw puzzles, books, calendars, candies, and a profusion of postcards. Soon, Bonzo, wearing a set of headphones, became associated with the Crosley Pup radios.
Years later, both Bonzo commercial items and Crosley Pup radios became valuable as collectibles. A paper mâché Crosley Bonzo is on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.
WLW and Crosley Broadcasting
As major manufacturer of radios, it was logical that Powel Crosley Jr. next turned to broadcasting. He began broadcasting from his home with a 20-watt transmitter soon after he built his first radios. On March 22, 1922, Crosley went on the air with a commercial station whose call sign was WLW. Over the next six years, the station's broadcast power was increased to 50,000 watts, and in 1934 Crosley put a 500,000-watt transmitter on the air (on occasion, the station's power was boosted as high as 700,000 watts).
Throughout the 1930s, WLW was truly "the Nation's Station," producing many hours of network programming every week. Among the entertainers who performed live from WLW's studios were Red Skelton, Doris Day, Jane Froman Fats Waller, Rosemary Clooney and the Mills Brothers. Crosley developed some of the earliest "soap operas" with sponsorship by the Proctor and Gamble Company, a maker of washing detergents.
Although the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restricted its normal use to 50,000 watts due to interference with other stations, during World War II, the higher power of WLW was utilized again, and the station could be heard throughout most parts of the world.
WLW's engineers also built high-power shortwave transmitters that became the "Voice of America." Crosley's broadcasting company eventually expanded into additional markets and experimented in 1939, 1941 and after World War II with television broadcasting. (Crosley Broadcasting did not go on the air with regular television broadcasting, with WLW-TV, until after Powel Crosley, Jr. sold the company to AVCO .)
See articles on WLW and Crosley Broadcasting Corporation.
Appliances
Beginning in 1930, Crosley had added refrigerators and other household appliances to his products. During the Great Depression, because he had invested in his own businesses instead of the stock market, he was better able than many industrialists to keep his employees working and his products available to the public.
The Icyball was an early non-electrical refrigeration device. The unit used an evaporative cycle to create cold, and had no moving parts. The dumb bell shaped unit was "charged" by heating one end with a small kerosene heater. Crosley Radio Corporation sold several hundred thousand Icyball units before discontinuing manufacture in the late 1930s. In 1932, another product, his "Shelvador" was the first refrigerator to have shelves in the door.
Sports
In 1934, Crosley purchased the Cincinnati Reds from owner Sidney Weil who had lost much of his wealth after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Crosley secured permission from the baseball commissioner to hold seven night games at the renamed Crosley Field. On May 24, 1934, the first nighttime game in baseball history was held there between the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies under newly-installed electric lighting. With attendance up more than 400% from daytime events, the team's financial position was greatly improved.
Seagate in Florida
In 1929, Powel Crosley Jr. built a Florida winter home for his family and, although it was not given a name (unlike his Cincinnati estate, which was called "Pinecroft") the property was given the name "Seagate" in the early 1980s. The two and one-half story Mediterranean mansion, designed by New York architect George Albree Freeman, Jr., was built in the southwest corner of Bradenton on a 60 acre (243,000 m²) parcel of land fronting on Sarasota Bay. Originally the mansion contained 10 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. It was the first residence built in Florida using fireproof steel frame construction. Features included a swimming pool, a seaplane dock and yacht basin.
Crosley and his family abandoned the mansion after Mrs. Gwendolyn Crosley (Powel's wife) died there of a lung ailment in 1939. During World War II, Crosley allowed the Army Air Corps use of the mansion to house men learning to fly fighter planes.
Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, Seagate was saved from commercial development and purchased for renovation by Manatee County. Today, Seagate houses The Powel Crosley Museum and is used as a meeting, conference, and event venue.
Automobiles, World War II
Of all Crosley's dreams, success at building an affordable automobile for Americans was possibly the only major one to eventually elude him. In the years leading up to World War II, he developed new products, reviving one of his earliest endeavors. In 1939, when Crosley introduced to the world the first small car, he broke with tradition and sold his car through many of his independent appliance dealers and department stores. The 1939 Crosley Motors, Inc. automobile had an 80 inch wheelbase, a diminutive 44 cubic inch engine (720 cm³), and a price tag between $325 and $350. The car, with its chubby profile was offered in gray, yellow or blue color, and all had red wheels and a black top. Weight was only 925 pounds. The company had plants in Camp Washington, Ohio, Richmond, Indiana, and Marion, Indiana. During the pre-war period, Crosley produced 5,757 cars. However, the onset of war ended all automobile production in the United States in 1942.
Crosley's efforts shifted to war-related products. The company made a wide variety of products. The most significant was its proximity fuses for the U.S. Navy, which are widely considered the third most important product development of the war years, ranking behind only the atomic bomb and radar.
James V. Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy said, "The proximity fuze has helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection this ingenious device has given the surface ships of the Fleet, our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men and ships would have been immeasurably greater."
British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill was quoted with "These so-called proximity fuzes, made in the United States.., proved potent against the small unmanned aircraft (V-1) with which we were assailed in 1944."
Commanding General of the Third Army, George S. Patton said, "The funny fuze won the Battle of the Bulge for us. I think that when all armies get this shell we will have to devise some new method of warfare."
Post-war auto manufacturing
After the end pf World War II, Crosley resumed building its small cars. A new model of the Crosley automobile was patterned after the small, lightweight cars of Europe. It sold for $850 and got between 30 and 50 miles per US gallon. Unfortunately for Crosley, his small, affordable car was 30 years ahead of its time. The market had changed from the post-Depression era. In the years after the victory in World War II, Americans wanted ever bigger cars. Crosley sold about 75,000 cars before closing down the operation in 1952.
Portable television
Despite his ultimate failure as an automobile manufacturer, Crosley was not out of touch with consumer trends. His WLW was experimenting with television as early as 1939.
He sold WLW (as well as Crosley Corporation) to the Aviation Corporation (AVCO) in 1945, and AVCO put the first television station in Ohio, WLWT-TV, on the air. At the same time AVCO began manufacturing television sets under the aegis of the Crosley Corporation. Some of the first portable television sets were manufactured by AVCO with the Crosley brand name.
"Crosley" ceased to exist as a brand name in 1956, when AVCO closed down the line due to lack of profit. Many years later, at least two American companies paid AVCO for the right to use the Crosley brand name on products made in Asia--a practice that Powel Crosley, Jr. would certainly have abhorred.
Why? In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, when authentic Crosley products such as radios and Shelvador refrigerators were being sold in Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia, the company made every single product in the U.S.A.
Death, heritage
Powel Crosley Jr. died March 28, 1961, of a heart attack.
Crosley had labeled himself "the man with 50 jobs in 50 years." He had used his fortune and his enterprise to assist many others up the ladder of success. His work provided employment and products for millions of people. Among his accomplishments were:
- second car radio (Motorola was first)
- first push button radio
- Most powerful radio broadcast system in the world (WLW, at 500 kW)
- early Soap Operas
- first refrigerator with shelves in the door
- first non-electric refrigerator (Icyball)
- first lights on a major league baseball field
- first mass-produced economy car
- first car to have disc brakes
"He was an idea man, ... always thinking, and he was sharp as a tack. He knew how to take other people’s ideas and make them work. And he always felt he could produce a unique product less expensively than other people."
- :Lewis "Lew" Crosley, grandson, in article in Sarasota Magazine January, 2000