Elon Huntington Hooker was an American engineer. He was the founder of Hooker Electrochemical Company.
Background
Elon Huntington Hooker was born on November 23, 1869 in Rochester, New York, United States. He was the second of six sons and third of eight children of Horace B. and Susan Pamelia (Huntington) Hooker. Both families were of English descent, and among Hooker's ancestors were two governors of New England states and Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford, Connecticut Elon's father, a lieutenant (acting captain) of engineers during the Civil War, was something of a visionary who dreamed of making a fortune from the dozens of inventions he worked on throughout his lifetime. Instead, his nursery business and later business as a contractor earned only an uncertain income.
Education
Hooker attended high school during the day and at night studied at Rochester's Mechanics' Institute (later the Rochester Institute of Technology).
Later he worked his way through the University of Rochester, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1891. In the fall of 1892 Hooker borrowed money and entered Cornell University, graduating in June of 1894 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. He spent part of the fellowship period at Cornell and the remainder in Europe, studying at the Zurich Polytechnicum and the École des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.
He returned to Cornell late in 1895 and in the following June received his Ph. D. degree in civil engineering. His record was so outstanding that he was subsequently (1905) offered the deanship of Cornell's College of Civil Engineering, which he declined.
Career
In 1891 Hooker met Emil Kuichling, a Rochester city engineer, under whom he worked during summer vacations. This brusque, energetic man whetted his ambition and influenced him to become a civil engineer. Hooker worked for a time with a construction firm and served on a private commission to investigate the Nicaraguan and Panama canal routes.
In 1899 Governor Theodore Roosevelt appointed him deputy superintendent of public works for the State of New York. During his stay in Albany he formed a lifelong friendship with Roosevelt, who in 1912 named him national treasurer of the Progressive party. His interest in politics continued, and in 1920 he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of New York. In 1901 Hooker resigned his position in the state government and accepted a vice-presidency with the Development Company of America. This was a holding company, organized to locate potentially profitable but undercapitalized enterprises and to supply the needed backing and management to put them on a paying basis. He remained with this company until January 1903, when he launched a similar organization of his own, the Development and Funding Company.
After examining over 250 projects the company decided to manufacture chemicals, using the newly invented Townsend electrolytic process. The Townsend process (invented by Clinton P. Townsend, a chemist and patent attorney, and Elmer A. Sperry, who later developed the gyroscope and gyrocompass) produced chlorine, caustic soda, and hydrogen by electrolysis of brine. Although the electrolytic principle had been demonstrated as early as 1807, it was not until the development of the electric dynamo late in the century that electrochemistry became a commercial possibility. By then relatively inexpensive electric power was available, and electrochemists centered their attention on developing a "cell" in which the electrolysis of brine could take place.
The Townsend cell was tested during the summer of 1904, and in the following year the Development and Funding Company built, at Niagara Falls, one of the first electrochemical plants in the United States. So successful was this first venture that the Development Company never undertook another. The Hooker Electrochemical Company, organized in 1909 to operate the Niagara Falls plant, quickly became a major producer of chlor-alkali chemicals and plastics.
He served as president of the Research Corporation (1915-1922) and of the Manufacturing Chemists' Association (1923-1925) and as a trustee of the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music.
Hooker died of pneumonia in Pasadena, California, and was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York.
Achievements
Hooker is best remembered for founding Hooker Electrochemical Company. As a founder of the company and its president until his death, Hooker ranked as one of the nation's leading figures in the field of electrochemistry.
Politics
Hooker was interested in politics; first he was a member of the Progressive Party, and later became member of the Republican Party.
Views
An ardent prohibitionist, Hooker neither smoked nor drank and did not permit liquor to be served in his home.
Personality
In appearance, Hooker was tall, ramrod-straight, with dark good looks and an air of imperturbable self-assurance.
Interests
Hooker was keenly interested in sports, antiques, and the arts, and wrote several articles on political and social questions.
Connections
In January 1901 Hooker married Blanche Ferry, the daughter of Dexter M. Ferry, a Detroit banker and founder of the Ferry Seed Company. He was survived by his wife and his four daughters: Barbara, Adelaide, Helen, and Blanchette.
