One day, Uncle Joe got fired from his construction job. His nephew asked him what happened.
“You know what a foreman is?” he asked. “The one who stands around and watches the other men work?”
“What's that got to do with it?” he asked.
“Well, he just got jealous of me,” Uncle Joe explained. “Everyone thought I was the foreman.”
Automobile starterIn 1903, the first U.S. patent for an automobile electric self-starter was issued to Clyde J. Coleman of New York City (No. 745,157). He invented the self-starter in 1899, but the invention was impractical. The license was purchased by the Delco Company, which was taken over by the General Motors Corporation. Charles Kettering at General Motors perfected the self-starter, which was first installed on Cadillac cars in 1911. This was a response to the death of a friend, who had died from injuries suffered when a car hand-crank recoiled against him. Having eliminated the dangerous job of cranking the engine, it put women behind the wheel in greater numbers. |
