John Joseph Flather

Background

John J. Flather was born on June 9, 1862, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Henry Flather and Sarah Hockensmith. His father was an Englishman, and his mother a native Virginian.

Education

Flather received his early education in private schools in Scotland, and in the high school at Bridgeport, Connecticut.

He early showed a pronounced mechanical bent and in 1880 entered the mechanical engineering department of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, graduating with the Bachelor of Philosophy degree, in 1885.

Also he received the degree of master of mechanical engineering in 1890.

Career

For several years following his graduation, Flather was engaged in engineering practise, obtaining a thorough and varied knowledge of industrial technology. He served a full machinist’s apprenticeship in several New England shops, including Flather & Company, Nashua, New Hampshire, the Howe Sewing Machine Company, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the Armstrong Manufacturing Company.

He was later designer and foreman for the Ansonia Electric Company and the Hotchkiss Manufacturing Company of Bridgeport. The intimate knowledge of machine-shop practise and methods which he obtained during these years was markedly in evidence during all of his later professional life.

In 1888, Flather entered upon his teaching career as an instructor in mechanical engineering at Lehigh University. He held this position for three years, at the same time carrying on graduate studies at the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University, under Professor Thurston, then at the height of his fame. He received the degree of master of mechanical engineering in 1890. As the mechanical engineering department at Lehigh University, under the direction of Professor Klein, was then accounted one of the strongest in the country, Flather’s career as a teacher of engineering began under the most favorable conditions.

Though only twenty-nine years old at the time, Flather received a call in 1891 to a professorship in mechanical engineering at Purdue University, one of the largest technical schools in the West.

After seven years’ service at Purdue, he was called to the University of Minnesota as professor of mechanical engineering and head of the department, which position he held until his death. The department developed under his direction from a small beginning to one of the strongest departments in the Engineering College, and with this development, Flather had a peculiarly intimate connection in that at one period or another he personally taught practically every course in the curriculum. He was an effective and inspiring teacher, and during his nearly thirty years of service at Minnesota, many distinguished engineers and engineering teachers received their training at his hands. He early became deeply interested in technical research, and the versatility of his intellect is strikingly shown by the scope of his investigations.

His earlier work, begun at Lehigh in 1888, was in the field of steam-and gas-engine performance and the transmission and measurement of power, in which latter field he became a national authority. He spent many years in the study of power-plant development, giving especial attention to the movements of gases in chimneys and to tall chimney design. During his later years, he was engaged in the investigation of problems in heating and ventilation and refrigeration.

Flather was a frequent contributor to technical journals throughout his professional career, and he also published two monographs, Dynamometers and the Measurement of Power (1892) and Rope-Driving (1895). He was joint author with Professor Chas. E. Lucke of Columbia University, of A Text Book of Engineering Thermodynamics and Handbook of Thermodynamic Tables and Diagrams, both published in 1915.

In addition to his university activities in teaching and research, Flather carried on a widely diversified practise as a consulting engineer, his work including the design of factories, power-plants and municipal water-works and electric-light plants. In a profession so exacting technically that it all too frequently turns its followers into narrow specialists, he was conspicuous for his broad culture and learning. John J. Flather died suddenly on May 14, 1926, at Hennepin County, Minnesota, of heart-failure, at the height of his professional career, maintaining his full activity up to the very day of his death.

Achievements

• John Joseph Flather was a recognized engineer, educator and author of numerous works, who spent many years in the study of power-plant development, giving especial attention to the movements of gases in chimneys and to tall chimney design. He was also engaged in the investigation of problems in heating and ventilation and refrigeration.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dynamometers and the Measurement of Power: A Treatise On the Construction and Application of Dynamometers, by John J. Flather

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A Text Book of Engineering Thermodynamics

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A Treatise On Steam-Boilers: Their Strength, Construction, and Economical Working

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Handbook of Thermodynamic Tables and Diagrams; A Selection of Tables and Diagrams from Engineering Thermodynamics

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Rope-Driving: A Treatise on the Transmission of Power by Means of Fibrous Ropes. First Edition

    (Rope-Driving - A Treatise on the Transmission of Power by...)

Interests

• John J. Flather had travelled widely at home and abroad, and had made a particular hobby of the history of engineering, upon which he was writing a treatise at the time of his death.

Connections

On June 18, 1890, John J. Flather married Harriet Frances Lum, of Stamford, Connecticut, who died in 1917. On February 23, 1925, Flather married Florence Evelyn Foster, of Dayton, Ohio.

Father:

Henry Flather

Mother:

Sarah Flather (Hockensmith)

Wife:

Florence Evelyn Flather (Foster)

Wife:

Harriet Frances Flather (Lum)