Charles Francis Brush was an American engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, and philanthropist. He devised an electric arc lamp and a generator that produced a variable voltage controlled by the load and a constant current.
Background
Charles was born in Euclid Township on March 17, 1849, Ohio, Brush was raised on a farm about 10 miles from downtown Cleveland. He had a great interest in science, particularly with Humphry Davy's experiments with the arc light; he tinkered with and built simple electrical devices such as a static electricity machine at age 12, experimenting in a workshop on his parents' farm.
Education
Charles Brush attended public schools in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his M. E. degree from the University of Michigan in 1869.
Career
After graduation, Charles Brush first worked as a public chemist, then from 1873 to 1877 maintained a small business as an iron dealer. He had shown remarkable mechanical ingenuity from early youth, and his experiments with electrical machines led to the invention of a dynamo in 1876 for the production of the high-tension current of constant voltage, which became the parent of the modern generator. He also developed the arc-light that bears his name and the fundamental storage battery. These contributions greatly speeded the growth of the electric lighting industry. In 1879 Brush demonstrated the first street lighting in Cleveland, and by 1882 the "Brush lights" had spread over a large part of the United States and to some countries in Europe. Brush formed the Brush Electric Company in 1880, and though he had some difficulty in protecting his patents, he was able to merge his company with the Edison Company and several lesser companies in 1891 to form the General Electric Company. In later years he became interested in other scientific developments, and in 1905 he formed the Linde Air Production Company for the production of oxygen from the liquid air. Brush also designed a new type of vacuum gauge. In 1910 he published A Kinetic Theory of Gravitation, in which he maintained that gravitation was caused by the absorption of isotropic ether waves of short length. Brush died in Cleveland, Ohio, June 15, 1929.