Richard Henry Rice was an American engineer and inventor.
Background
Richard Henry Rice was born on January 9, 1863 in Rockland, Maine, the son of Albert Smith and Frances W. (Baker) Rice and a descendant of Deacon Edmund Rice, who settled in Sudbury, Massachussets, before 1639. His grandfather was a prominent railway executive, and his father served as a representative in the Maine legislature.
Education
Rice received his early education in his native town, and in 1881, being particularly interested in engineering, he entered Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He graduated in 1885 with the degree of mechanical engineer.
Career
He spent a year in Dennison, Ohio, as a special apprentice with the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railway; then he entered the employ of the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, as a draftsman.
In 1887 he accepted the position of designer and chief draftsman with E. D. Leavitt, engineer of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in Cambridgeport, Massachussets, and in the course of the succeeding four years gained a reputation as an able engineer and machine designer. This brought him the position (1891 - 94) of general superintendent of the William A. Harris Steam Engine Company at Providence, Rhode Island, an office he resigned when he organized the Rice and Sargent Engine Company in Providence to manufacture steam engines invented jointly by himself and his partner.
He held the office of secretary and treasurer of the company until it was merged with the Providence Engineering Company in 1899; he was treasurer of the latter until 1903, when he resigned to enter the General Electric Company at Lynn, Massachussets Here for fifteen years he directed work on the development of the steam turbine; in 1918 he was made general manager of the works. He was serving in this capacity at the time of his sudden death.
From the very beginning of his engineering career Rice demonstrated a marked inventive talent and in the course of his life was the recipient of some fifty patents. "Chief among his original creations was the design of the first turbo-blower for blast furnaces to be installed in America, though of equal value were the Rice and Sargent steam engines designed jointly with John W. Sargent. These were recognized as among the best slow and medium speed steam engines in the country and were produced by the Rice and Sargent Engine Company between 1894 and 1903.
In his early work at Lynn, Mr. Rice designed the smaller ratings of Curtis turbines up to 5, 000 horse-power". For the first two years of its existence he was president of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts; he served as president of the National Conference of State Manufacturers' Associations and was a member of the Lynn Fuel Commission during the World War. He also found time to write a number of technical papers dealing with the steam turbine.
Achievements
Connections
Rice was married first in 1887 to Mary Sue Durgin of Concord, New Hampshire, who died in 1891, and on March 26, 1898, to Alice Woodman Kimball, who with two daughters by his first wife survived him.