Perry Doolittle

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Perry Doolittle on his tour of Canada in Northern Ontario (1925)
Doolittle as a cyclist (ca.1880)

Perry Ernest Doolittle (born March 22, 1861 in Luton , † December 31, 1933 in Toronto ) was a Canadian doctor , inventor , cyclist and motorist . He is considered the "father of the Trans-Canada Highway ".

biography

Family and work

Perry Doolittle was a son of Ira Scott Doolittle and his wife Sarah Jane, née Westover. The family was Methodist , his father was of English and his mother of German descent. Doolittle attended Trinity Medical School in Toronto, graduating with a doctorate in medicine and an exam as a surgeon in 1885 . He then settled in Toronto and opened a practice that he would run until the end of his life. In later years he specialized in electrotherapy for the treatment of arthritis and in surgery. In 1886 he married Emily Esther Pearson (1861-1956); the couple had a son and a daughter.

Cycling and association policy

Book by Doolittle: Wheeloutings in Canada

At the age of seven, Doolittle was given a bicycle. As a teenager, he built his own model with wooden frames and steel tires after seeing pictures in Scientific American magazine of high-powered bicycles exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 . His next bicycle was made of iron and reinforced with the barrel of an old rifle.

Until 1890 Doolittle competed in numerous bicycle races on high bikes. The details of his successes are incomplete: He is said to have become Canadian champions over five miles in 1881 and 1882. At the Canadian Championships in 1883, organized by the Canadian Wheelmen's Association (CWA) and held in London , Ontario , Doolittle finished second in the five-mile race. At the meeting the following year, he won the half-mile (hands-free!) Race and the obstacle race. In total, he won more than 50 competitions in his career. After he stopped racing, he acted as a doctor for members of the Toronto Bicycle Club . In 1896 and 1898 he patented the hub brakes he had developed , which were commercially produced for a while and widespread in Canada.

Just hours after the championship race in 1883, 22-year-old Perry Doolittle was elected vice president of the Ontario- based CWA. This association promoted the construction and maintenance of good roads across the country and briefly published the monthly magazine Bicycle , edited by journalist Walter Cameron Nichol . In the 1880s and 1890s Doolittle promoted the CWA, primarily through the publication of his travelogue Wheel Outings in Canada and CWA Guide from 1895, which he presented to Governor General John Hamilton-Gordon, 7th Earl of Aberdeen and his wife Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon dedicated. He also wrote this report with the aim of luring US tourists to Canada: “If we can convince you that we are not a land of eternal ice and snow, but that summer excursions are nowhere else so pleasant, then we have fulfilled the task that we have set ourselves. "

Commitment to the automobile and better roads

In 1896 Perry Doolittle traveled to England to obtain a British patent for one of his inventions. It was there that he became interested in automobiles. In 1899, he made what was believed to be the country's first used car purchase when he bought a Winton from a friend . His car was Toronto Number 3. He was one of the first Toronto doctors to use a car for visits, and he organized car parades around town. Doolittle also invented auto parts, such as an interchangeable rim .

In 1903 Doolittle became the founding president of the Toronto Automobile Club , which four years later became part of the Ontario Motor League . The league, in turn, was instrumental in founding the Canadian Automobile Federation in 1913. Doolittle chaired the founding meeting of this association, which was renamed the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) in 1916 . From 1920 until his death he was its president.

In 1919 the Canada Highways Act was passed by the Canadian government, which is also attributed to Perry Doolittle's efforts to build better roads. He also campaigned for uniform traffic rules in Canada, as previous regulations were enacted locally and the use of cars had been restricted in some provinces after they had become popular and numerous. It was not until 1917 that the province of Prince Edward Island allowed the unrestricted use of cars after they were initially banned and then only allowed to be driven on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Doolitte's persistent lobbying helped bring about further changes: In the early 1920s, the maritime provinces and British Columbia switched from left- hand traffic to right-hand traffic, making direction of travel uniform for cars across Canada. He also campaigned for speed limits to be raised . He himself drove around 240,000 kilometers by car until 1927.

Doolittle did several car tours across the country. The most famous tour took place in 1925, when he and the photographer Edward Flickinger, who officially worked for Ford Canada, drove a Ford Model T (Tin Lizzie) from Halifax to Vancouver within 40 days . The 7,715-kilometer drive was sponsored by Gordon Morton McGregor , founder of the Ford Motor Company of Canada . Doolitte's goal was to win the Todd Medal for the first person to drive across Canada in a car. During his trip, he promoted the construction of a highway across Canada. As soon as this is completed, he prophesied, “we will be united more than ever by ties of friendship and acquaintance from coast to coast”. Since the roads were still poor, he had to drive more than 800 miles with flanged railroad wheels on rails, breaking the rules, so that he did not receive the Todd Medal . It was not until 1946 that it was possible to drive across Canada exclusively by road, and in 1962 - almost 30 years after Doolitte's death - the Trans-Canada Highway was opened, and he is considered to be its “father”.

In August 1928, Perry Doolittle was honored with a $ 5,000 award for "years of work promoting automotive and road affairs". The CAA celebrated him as the "King of the Canadian Roads". Doolittle died on New Year's Eve 1933 at the age of 72 years at a pneumonia , having previously been on prostate cancer had suffered. He was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery , Toronto; Among the pallbearers was the Prime Minister of Canada, George Stewart Henry .

In 2017, Perry Doolittle was posthumously honored with the Leadership Award from the Canadian Council of Independent Laboratories . His great-grandchildren received the award.

Web links

Commons : Perry Doolittle  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Doolittle, Perry Ernest - Volume XVI (1931-1940). In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography. February 22, 2021, accessed February 22, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Perry Doolittle. radsportseiten.net, accessed on March 11, 2021 (English).
  3. ^ WN Robertson: Cycling! Pratt, Stratford 1894, pp. 260 .
  4. ↑ Perry E. Doolittle. mountpleasantgroup.com, December 31, 1933, accessed March 11, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Thane Burnett: Remember me? Dr. Perry Doolittle. torontosun.com, November 15, 2013, accessed March 10, 2021 (English).
  6. ↑ Our History. caasco.com, 2021, accessed March 12, 2021 .
  7. ^ Dr Perry Ernest Doolittle (1861-1933). Findagrave.com, December 31, 1933, accessed March 11, 2021 .
  8. ↑ Dr. Doolittle. ccil.com, January 31, 2019, accessed March 10, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME Doolittle, Perry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Doolittle, Perry Ernest (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian cyclist and motorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Luton
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1933
PLACE OF DEATH Toronto