James Ward Packard

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James Ward Packard (born November 5, 1863 in Warren (Ohio) , † March 20, 1928 in Cleveland (Ohio) ) was an American entrepreneur and engineer. Together with his older brother William Doud Packard , he founded the Packard Electric Company in Warren , Ohio in 1890 . From 1899 he built automobiles under his name together with him and other partners. This later became the Packard Motor Car Company .

Youth and education

James Ward Packard grew up with four siblings in a respected merchant family in Warren, whose ancestors immigrated from Scotland in 1628 . His father, Warren Packard , had built an important chain of hardware stores, including a sawmill and hotel. James attended the local elementary school and then enrolled at Lehigh University in Bethlehem , Pennsylvania . As a teenager, he and his brother William published their own newspaper, which was printed in their parents' house. With the profit from the newspaper sale, the two financed a trip to the 1876 ​​World's Fair in Philadelphia . 1873 bought James Warren's father and his uncle John Packard 25 acres (10 ha) of land in Lakewood on Chautauqua Lake ( New York ). On this ground they built the family's summer houses. The Lakeview House Hotel, which opened in 1870 and where the brothers worked over the summer , also belonged to the country . William ran the hotel's telegraph office , James was in charge of the steam generator that supplied the house with electricity. James was also an avid cyclist and went on extensive tours on the emerging bicycle . During his college days he was the team captain of the Lehigh University Bicycle Club .

Packard remained grateful to his alma mater throughout his life. After receiving his doctorate in engineering in 1884, he took a job in the generator room of the incandescent lamp pioneer Sawyer-Mann Electric Company in New York . A month later he was responsible for this room and by November 1884 he was head of the company's mechanical department. During this time his first patents for a magnetic circuit and an incandescent lamp fall ; the latter was sold to the Westinghouse company.

Packard Electric Company

Incandescent lamps and electrical energy were relatively new at the time; Thomas Alva Edison had only received a patent on it in 1880 . The construction of electrical lighting for industry and household as well as supply networks promised to become a promising business.

Packard returned to Warren in 1890 and, together with his brother William and partners CF Clapp , MB Tayler and Jacob Perkins, founded the Packard Electric Company, which initially produced dynamos , light bulbs, cables and electrical devices with ten employees . James became the company's managing director and his brother the company's chief financial officer. The company was one of the first to operate its machines with electrical energy. Packard Electric was the first in the United States to develop electric street lights, and the brothers' hometown, Warren, received one in 1911.

Automobiles

In 1891 the Packard brothers founded the New York & Ohio Company , which focused on the manufacture of light bulbs and transformers .

James Ward Packard drew the first designs for an automobile as early as 1893. During a trip to Europe in 1895, William became interested in French developments. That was probably the trigger that James bought a De Dion-Bouton tricycle at the end of the year . He examined its function in detail, but was not satisfied with the reliability of the vehicle that later his nephew Warren Packard, Jr. (1892-1929) received.

An entry in his diary of May 16, 1896 shows that a draftsman ( Edward P. Cowles ) was hired to work out plans for a "motor vehicle". Packard never seems to have considered a steam or electric vehicle. On August 6, 1898, he bought a larger automobile. It was the 12th that the Winton Motor Carriage Company had produced. Packard already had big problems with the handover from Cleveland home on August 3rd; for the 65 miles (105 km), the vehicle took about 11 hours and, after breaking down several times, was pulled by horses for the last five kilometers. From the surviving diary of James Packard and his correspondence, it is recorded that he made various suggestions for improvement to Alexander Winton . This, himself an excellent engineer, reacted irritably over time and led him to the traditional remark that Packard should better build a car himself if he was so smart. Ultimately, it was probably this dispute that prompted James Packard to actually start such a project in the summer of 1899.

Again his brother William was involved. He also secured the support of investor George L. Weiss , who had already made a financial contribution to Winton. Alexander Winton was so enraged that he withdrew his funds and invested in Packard that he had Weiss' car, the fourth Winton built, deleted from the official statistics. James Packard also recruited Winton's chief mechanic, William A. Hatcher . They set up a workshop in the corner of the New York & Ohio Company . James made his first successful test drive back in November 1899. The Packard brothers have now reached an agreement with Weiss for the manufacture of the Packard car. A total of five of these Packard Model A were started in late 1899; the last one should have been completed by mid-1900.

The Packards, Weiss, and Hatcher brought vehicle manufacturing into an appropriate legal form by forming the Ohio Automobile Company . William Packard withdrew from automobile production at this point. Each of the remaining partners contributed $ 3,000. On October 16, James Packard was negotiating with FS Terry , owner of the National Electric Lamp Company, to sell the New York & Ohio Company to raise funds for the auto business. However, there was no deal, the Packards kept the company.

Henry Bourne Joy

The Ohio Automobile Company urgently needed a capital injection to cope with the success to date. Investors were a group of Detroit businesspeople led by Henry Bourne Joy , Truman Handy Newberry, and Phillip H. McMillan . At a memorable meeting of shareholders on October 13, 1902, the company name was changed to "Packard Motor Car Company" (PMCC). The group took over the majority of the shares with Packard's consent. At the time, James Packard was working on an engine that anticipated many of the idiosyncrasies of the Duesenberg Walking Beam . Packard applied for a patent on June 29, 1903; It was issued on September 4, 1906. It remained a historical footnote and was never realized. The Duesenberg Walking Beam Motor was only applied for a patent in April 1913 by the brothers Fred S. Duesenberg and August S. Duesenberg . It included the complete combustion engine. In August 1914, the valve train was separated from this application and patent protection was applied for separately. The US Patent Office granted it and issued the patent on October 30, 1917 with the number 1,244,481.

James Packard was not to play an active role in this company after the change of majority, although he formally remained president of the company until 1909 and a member of the board of directors until 1915. Henry B. Joy was always respectful of him. Under his leadership, the Packard Motor Car Company established itself as the leading luxury car manufacturer in the USA.

William Hatcher, however, soon left the company. He was succeeded by the Frenchman Charles Schmidt , whom Joy introduced and recommended to him. One of Schmidt's conditions was to be allowed to build a racing car. This is how the Packard Gray Wolf was born . In November 1902 George Weiss also resigned from his post. William Dowd Packard also retired and took over the management of the New York & Ohio Company . James Packard also approved the production of multi-cylinder engines and commercial vehicles as well as the company's move to Detroit. In the spring of 1903 the company bought a piece of land there and had the architect Albert Kahn build factories which made building history as the first industrial buildings made of reinforced concrete. Today only ruins remain of it. The factory opened on October 10, 1903. Two days earlier, Packard had returned to Warren because of the death of his mother.

On August 31, 1904, James Ward Packard married Elizabeth A. Gillmer . The couple remained childless. On the property in Lakewood inherited from his parents, the couple built a new property in 1912 that is still standing today.

Pocket watches

James Packard was a passionate collector of pocket watches and a world-class collection. Together with banker and financier Henry Graves, Jr. (1868–1953) he is considered the most important collector in the USA in this field. While Graves could claim to own the most complicated watch of his time, Packard's collection comprised 17 Patek Philippe , including one with 10 complications and a Grande Complication with 16. In addition there were pieces by Vacheron Constantin Appleton, Tracy & Company (1857– 1859; a forerunner of the Waltham Watch Company ) and others.

On June 15, 2011, some watches owned by JW Packard were auctioned. A 1,919 specially made for him and to 200,000 to 400,000 US dollars estimated Patek Philippe scoring 986,500 US dollars and a 1918-built for him Vacheron Constantin 1,762,500 US dollars (estimated 250,000 to 500,000 US dollars).

Packard bequeathed most of his collection to the Horological Institute of America (now the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWCI)).

Next life

Lehigh University; Packard Laboratory

In 1915, James Packard retired from business entirely. He expressed his solidarity with the hometown of Warren through generous donations: he donated 100,000 dollars for a library and he and brother William donated over 60 hectares of land in 1911 for a public park. This Packard Park still exists today.

His largest donation, however, went to Lehigh University : $ 1.2 million. The university used these funds to set up the Packard Laboratory in 1929 , which today houses the Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Sciences . The university also received the first Packard automobile from 1899 (the first of five prototypes of the A series) as a gift. This vehicle still exists and was exhibited at Lehigh University for a long time.

In late 1926, James Ward Packard fell seriously ill. He spent the following 16 months in the hospital. He died on March 20, 1928. His widow allowed the Packard Motor Car Company to use the Packard family's coat of arms as the logo for their automobiles, which they did until 1957.

Life's work

James Ward Packard's home at 319 Oak Knoll Avenue in Warren, Ohio, built in 1924, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The withdrawal from the Packard Motor Car Company is related to the importance of the company to the Packard brothers. Their core business was electrical engineering and they owned the Packard Electric Company and the New York & Ohio Company, two extremely promising companies that required their attention. James Ward Packard and his brother William built several companies in a lifelong partnership. James received 40 patents over the course of his life. Packard automobiles were made until 1958; the company held up to 50% of world production of luxury vehicles in the 1920s. Packard Electric was sold to General Motors in 1932 . In 1978 the company had around 13,000 employees. It remained active under this corporate umbrella until it was absorbed by the Delphi Corporation in 1995 .

James Ward and William Doud Packard were inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1999 , the highest honor the automotive industry can bestow.

literature

  • Beverly Rae Kimes (Ed.): Packard, a history of the motor car and the company - General edition. In: Automobile Quarterly. 1978, ISBN 0-915038-11-0 .
  • Dennis Adler: Packard. Motorbooks Classics, 2004, ISBN 0-7603-1928-6 .
  • George H. Dammann, James A. Wren: Packard. Motorbooks International, Crestline Series, Osceola WI, ISBN 0-7603-0104-2 .
  • James A. Ward: The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company. University Press, September 1, 1995, ISBN 0-8047-2457-1 .
  • Robert E. Turnquist: The Packard Story (The Car and the Company). Somerset Press.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kimes: Packard (1978), pp. 16-18
  2. ↑ Kimes: Packard (1978), pp. 18-21
  3. ↑ a b Lehigh University: Packard, James Ward
  4. ↑ a b c Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 19
  5. ↑ a b Jamestown Post-Journal online: A Look at J. Ward Packard, Creator of Lakewood's Packard Mansion
  6. ↑ Homepage of Lehigh University (English) ( Memento from February 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ PDF of the patent specification for incandescent lamps to Thomas Alva Edison (January 27, 1880, English) ( Memento of February 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Kimes: Packard (1978), pp. 19-20
  9. ↑ a b Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 22
  10. ↑ Automotive Hall of Fame, James Ward Packard (English) ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ a b Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 23
  12. ↑ Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 24
  13. ^ Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 27
  14. ^ Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 32
  15. ↑ Kimes: Packard (1978), p. 34
  16. ↑ Kimes, Packard (1978), p. 44
  17. ↑ Automotive Hall of Fame, Henry B. Joy (English) ( Memento from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ U.S. Patent No. 830,099 A: JW Packard; Hydrocarbon engine for motor vehicles.
  19. ↑ U.S. Patent No. 1,244,481, October 30, 1917: Valve Train ; FS and AS Duesenberg, registered on August 13, 1914.
  20. ^ William Pearce: Duesenberg Aircraft Engines: A Technical Description. Old Machine Press, 2012; ISBN 0-98503530-7 , p. 9.
  21. ↑ christies.com: List of well-known Patek-Philippe watches manufactured for JW Packard
  22. ↑ christies.com: Patek-Philippe # 5454552
  23. ↑ christies.com: Vacheron Constantin # 5454553
  24. ↑ RELEASE: THE FAIRYTALE WATCH COLLECTION HIDDEN IN A BANK VAULT FOR OVER 60 YEARS. In: christies.com. May 25, 2011, accessed June 11, 2016 .
  25. ↑ Homepage of the Automotive Hall of Fame (English)
personal data
SURNAME Packard, James Ward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur and engineer
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Warren (Ohio)
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1928
Place of death Cleveland (Ohio)