Background
Samuel Mendelsohn was born on March 3, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Gedalah Mendelsohn, a physician and rabbi, and Rebecca Pearl Lustgarten.
Samuel Mendelsohn was born on March 3, 1895 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Gedalah Mendelsohn, a physician and rabbi, and Rebecca Pearl Lustgarten.
Mendelsohn graduated from Roanoke High School in 1912.
For a time Mendelsohn and his brother sold and manufactured radio tubes. They sold the company in 1930. Mendelsohn then had a flashlight and battery concession in a Times Square drugstore in New York City. During this period, he invented a three-cell, dry-battery-powered flashgun that replaced the manganese-powder devices then used by photographers. When press photographers complained about the lack of synchronization between the flashgun and camera shutter, Mendelsohn developed a flashbulb that could be delayed to synchronize with the opening of the shutter. He called the invention the Mendelsohn Speedgun and founded the Mendelsohn Speedgun Company in 1932, opening a plant in Bloomfield, New Jersey. The first significant news photo taken with the Speedgun was that of Chicago's Mayor Anton Cermak on February 13, 1933, shortly after his assassination while riding in Miami with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. The photo resulted in a great deal of publicity for the Speedgun. Mendelsohn operated the Speedgun plant until the state took it for a highway right-of-way in 1951. He sold the business to the Micro Laboratory of Livingston, New Jersey. Mendelsohn emerged from retirement in 1961 to manage the Line Electric Company of Orange, New Jersey. He was active in civic and community affairs in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and was a life member of the National Press Photographers Association. He died on February 1, 1966 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.
a member of the National Press Photographers Association
Mendelsohn married Hannah Block on May 23, 1925; they had one child.