James J. Wood: two hundred forty patents

1856–1928 · GE'S MOST PROLIFIC FORT WAYNE INVENTOR

The record: James J. Wood (25 March 1856 – 19 April 1928) was born at Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, and patented his arc-light dynamo on 19 October 1880 — the first of some 240 patents across forty-eight years. His dynamo and arc system for floodlighting lit the Statue of Liberty in 1885; that was New York work, done before Fort Wayne, and it is printed here as his prehistory, not as a Fort Wayne invention. In 1890 R. T. McDonald bought Wood's company and brought the man with it: Wood came to Fort Wayne (the News-Sentinel's account gives December 1890, as chief electrician) and stayed for thirty-eight years — factory manager, then chief engineer, then consulting engineer of the Fort Wayne Works until his death. The Fort Wayne corporation of 1894 was already manufacturing "under the Wood patents" and selling a "Wood system" of dynamos, arc lamps, meters, switches and coils (Scientific American, 6 October 1894). General Electric's own Steinmetz-era history gives the measure of the man: his 240 patents place him behind only Edison, Elihu Thomson and E. F. W. Alexanderson among the company's most prolific inventors, and the biographical record adds that the major portion of the inventions were devised after his removal to Fort Wayne. One local claim about him needs its edges trimmed: GE's milestone lists credit Wood with patents for the electric fan in 1902, and a 1902 GE fan built by the Fort Wayne Electric Works — the FWEW monogram in its grill — survives in the GE collection; but the flat statement that he "invented the first electric fan" fails against Schuyler Skaats Wheeler's fan patents of 1882, and is not printed here as fact. Wood was also among the first men in the industry to see the household refrigerator's market, and under him Fort Wayne took a major role in building GE's refrigerator business — the thread the refrigerator entry below picks up.

Sources:

1. The Steinmetz Era: The General Electric Story, Vol. 2 (GE, Elfun Hall of History) — the 1890 purchase and removal to Fort Wayne, the factory managership, the 240 patents and the ranking behind Edison, Thomson and Alexanderson, the early sight of the refrigerator business.
2. World Biographical Encyclopedia (prabook), "James Wood" — Kinsale 1856, the 19 October 1880 dynamo patent, the 1885 Statue of Liberty floodlighting, the Fort Wayne consulting engineership to his death in 1928, most inventions devised after the removal.
3. Scientific American, 6 October 1894 — the Fort Wayne Electric Corporation manufacturing under the Wood patents.
4. Kevin Leininger, "Light of the world," News-Sentinel, 19 December 1982 — Wood's December 1890 arrival and the "Wood Systems" trademark.
5. GE, via Google Arts & Culture (Museum of Innovation and Science) — the 1902 Fort Wayne-built GE fan with the FWEW mark; PSMA Power Electronics Milestones (GE source) — Wood's 1902 electric-fan patents; Visit Fort Wayne, Allen County Historic Sites — the "first electric fan" form of the claim, corrected here.